Our new season opened with a visit from the still youthful but already musically formidable Ensemble Perpetuo. Leader Fenella Humphreys was joined by violist Gary Pomeroy and cellist Cara Berridge for Trio Dances for String Trio by Adrian Sutton, full of good tunes and similar in style to Peter Warlock’s ever-popular Capriol Suite. This was followed by Schumann’s Piano Quartet Opus 47, where the musicians, now joined by Emma Abbate on the piano, entered fully into the nervous energy and repeated questioning required before the arrival of the beautiful third movement, surely one of the best things this perennially troubled composer ever wrote. With Cara Berridge on the cello in particular fine form, this was chamber music at its best.

After the interval, Fauré’s Piano Quartet Opus 15, with its occasional glimpses of the composer’s best-loved songs and choral music, was played with equal commitment,
receiving thunderous applause at the finish of its unexpectedly fiery final movement. For lighting up so comprehensively an otherwise grey, rainy evening from first to last, many thanks indeed to these brilliant musicians.