Watching four different bodies combine on stage is one of the fascinations of seeing small-scale ensembles perform in chamber music concerts. We can’t know freely their actual personalities but we can search for clues in how they perform. Our eyes are drawn in all directions.

Here was another example in the frequent flow of Coffee Concert debut-making groups already operating at high level. This time, Quatuor Arod from Paris – intriguingly More

When you set out to go to a concert featuring well-known quartets by Haydn and Beethoven, you might be forgiven for thinking that you know what to expect. With Quatuor Arod you would be wrong. They take well-known pieces and play them as though More

A few weeks ago on BBC Radio 3’s Record Review, a Saturday morning, there was music for piano, violin and cello by Takemitsu. A Japanese composer, long influential over European composers, gently telling us of his homeland’s serene beauty, and encouraging Western ears to tune into its physical and emotional ambience, in a piece called Between Tides.

Presenter Andrew McGregor noted special qualities More

Coffee Concert    25 March 2018  Trio Isimsiz

What an interesting programme! They have taken two of the great Romantic composers, most of whose works penetrate to the heart of what it means to be human, and played some of their lightest, most joyful work. From these pieces you wouldn’t know More

A new record Coffee Concert attendance was undeterred by the coldest air Siberia could send us on Sunday.  There were 40 people making a late decision to come and tot the gate up to 264 people, which beats The Corn Exchange’s best before its rebuilding forced More

I’ve written about the Castalian as recently as November 2017 after their last coffee concert. All the things I liked then are More