Review: Music in the Round Ensemble 360

There was certainly pregnant silence at the start, in the expectation of the usual verbal introduction, but the nameless new quartet; four string players from ensemble 360, began with "papa" Haydn's first offspring: the first movement of his string quartet Op.1 No.1.

It was astonishingly mature music both in its composition and in its performance, Benjamin Nabarro and Claudia Ajmone-Marsan throwing presto semiquavers at each other as if they had been doing it for years.

The quartet's sense of ensemble was even more impressive in Haydn's Op. 22 No.2 where rhythmic togetherness was combined with a joint sense of style, laying on the expressivity in the slow movement and holding off on the vibrato to produce pleasing, hurdy gurdy-like contrasts in the minuet.

So how would (three quarters of) this infant quartet stand up to the athletic playing of Tim Horton in Mozart's Piano Quartet in E flat? Answer: with sensitivity on both sides very well.

Marie Macleod and Ylvali Zilliacus were not given many opportunities to shine individually, but easily held their own in tone and expression.

And the answer to the initial question? To quote TS Elliot: "There was a birth, certainly, we had evidence and no doubt."

Sheffield Crucible Studio