Published Date:
03 July 2009
By David Denton
The Endellion unfailingly draws capacity audiences and every year it is the most highly anticipated music event in Leeds, the end of the season always tinged with sadness, though it was modified by the vivacious Schumann Piano Quintet that brought this series to a close.
It had a rare sighting in the city of a previous winner of the Leeds International Piano Concerto, Anne Queffelec, who joined the Endellion in the fastest account of the Schumann you will probably ever hear, leaving her string colleagues rather breathless in the scherzo.
Maybe a lower piano lid would have created a better balance, but Schumann was a pianist and did place the keyboard in a pivotal role to drive the work forward, Queffelec playing unfailingly accurate, the lower strings perfectly adding the soulful moments.
She was equally persuasive in Mozart's Piano Quartet, another work where the performers can illuminate it with happiness, the quartet's second violin, Ralph de Souza, stepping into the leader's chair.
The concert opened with Haydn's The Dream Quartet, a nickname given to it by the mood of the second movement, though the Endellion were in no mind to let anything in this superb concert to become dreamy, their playing wonderfully crisp and neat.
The Venue, Leeds
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Last Updated:
03 July 2009 11:55 AM
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Source:
n/a
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Location:
Yorkshire
