The Glenroy Auditorium was only half filled for the Chamber Music Society’s guest performers the Sonoro Quartet with pianist Tony Chen Lin.
However, the comparatively small numbers present made a full show of their appreciation with stamping and cheering to celebrate an evening of exemplary playing.
The programme, made up entirely of works by Schubert and Schumann, might have sounded a trifle boring.
However, such fears were soon allayed by the ghostly harmonics in the opening and closing passages of Elliot Vaughan’s succinct arrangement of Der Tod und das Madchen (Death and the Maiden).
First violinist Liu-Yi Retallick’s exquisite performance became the first sign that this evening was about to be extraordinary.
Elliot Vaughan’s equally eclectic arrangement Du bist wie eine Blume (You are like a Flower) of Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E flat minor, with guest pianist Tony Chen Lin, rejuvenated the work’s romantic turn of phrase.
The performance’s precision and emphatic rhythmic pace combined with great clarity was exhilarating.
The highlight has to be the final movement, the rondo, also known as Tarantella.
By comparison, Schubert’s String Quartet No 14 (Death and the Maiden) at 38 minutes long is somewhat overwrought.
However, audience attention was held by the Quartet’s (Retallick, with second violinist Jeroen De Beer, violist Deamus Hickey and cellist Leo Guigen) intimate precision, refined energy, dramatic phrasing and performance stamina.
Schumann’s Piano Quintet is also, by comparison, a long work in need of some editing.
However, the rousing cheers and stamping it received from an ecstatic audience is proof of the positive impact of a clearly articulated, nuanced and exciting performance by the ensemble.
Another highlight was the scherzo movement for its quixotic mood swings.
Another of Vaughan’s arrangements of a Schumann work, unfortunately unlisted, provided the ensemble’s performance with a startlingly beautiful and generously performed encore.
