THE RETURN of Leamington Music’s hugely popular season of chamber concerts brought a few changes and a few reassuringly familiar qualities.
Marmen Quartet kicked off the series which, owing to the Pump Rooms having the builders in, has moved from the bottom to the top of the Parade and into Holy Trinity Church.
A change of venue inevitably brings a change of sound and atmosphere. Perhaps the test is how quickly an audience can be charmed into forgetting where it is.
The programme to launch the new season was a gem. Marmen Quartet covered all bases with classical Haydn, spiky Bartok and impressionistic Debussy.
Haydn’s quartets, perennially being used as inoffensive starters on the menu it seems, give a perfect test to the acoustic of the venue and, with perhaps a little of the crispness of the Pump Rooms’ marble box missing, there was enough clarity to make the music and its players come through with depth, projection and accuracy.
The warmth of the acoustic, and its suitability for the quieter end of the dynamic range was convincingly proved in an excellent, captivating reading of Bartok’s second quartet. As a piece it has all the weapons a quartet can reasonably use – moments of all-out attack with four players barely able to remain in their chairs as the intensity reaches its height, and passages of such heartbreaking quiet and surprising lyricism.
This was playing of the top level and the dying cello line to end the first movement, and the twin pizzicato notes to end the third had this large auditorium transfixed.
Debussy’s Quartet in G Minor showed this fine ensemble at their best. The Marmen Quartet seem to lose themselves entirely in individual worlds, barely sharing a glance at times, while nevertheless being able to produce a collective sound that is so beautifully together and perfectly balanced. The swapping of lead melody playing over a pizzicato texture is seamless, each instrument picking up the tone of the one before.
The slow third movement produced playing of such delicate beauty it was almost like breathing. Delivered with the softest of touch and tone this, if pushed, was perhaps the highlight of the evening. The quartet, like the venue, will have left a very positive impression on all.
Somewhere down the line a decision will have to be made about venue. The Pump Rooms has been a spiritual home for many years and its side-on shaping means nobody is that far from the playing. Holy Trinity puts the players, for some, at a greater distance. One has the benefit of centrality but that brings traffic noise.
Either way, it is the quality of programming and playing that define this series and both, on this showing, are in fine fettle.
Details of concerts in this series and at St Mary’s Church in Warwick can be found at leamingtonmusic.org along with booking information.
