March 2009

Dear Music-lover,

"Passion": that's the word that came to me several times during Tuesday's concert by the Psophos Quartet with Nils Monkemeyr to to a well-filled Town Hall. The quartet - four girls based in Paris - gave us a wonderful concert as part of their Scottish tour, which had taken them from Aberdeen, down the East Coast to the central belt, up to Thurso and then to us. Admittedly, I didn't see much sign of the passion during the Mendelssohn Capriccio that opened the concert, although the clean lines of the work and the ensemble of the quartet were evident.

However, when Nils joined them for first the Mozart and then the Brahms viola quintets, the passion of the works and the depth of sound created by the additional instrument gave the concert a completely different perspective. Naïvely, I had thought that these might be something like the Brahms clarinet quintet we heard in November 2007, with the additional instrument being something of a soloist. In fact, the extra viola blended in so well with the quartet that it was easily seen that all the players were on the same musical wavelength and the effect was to give the works the depth and timbre intended by the composer.

Before the Brahms, Nils spoke eloquently not only about the work and Brahms' passion (it's that word again) for Clara Schumann, but about the Hall, which he described as the finest in their tour. His sentiments were echoed by Eva, the cellist who later repeated the compliment to me and also spoke fulsomely about the welcome and attention of you, the audience.

On Wednesday 15th April, we welcome Yasmin Rowe, the winner of last year's Moray Piano Competition, to give her winner’s recital. Having heard her in Elgin, I can promise you an excellent evening. I hope to see you there.

Paul