Classical review: Csengele Quartet, Cottiers, Glasgow

THE youthful Csengele Quartet and pianist Pearl-Lynne Chen are still students at Glasgow’s Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, but you’d hardly know it from the performances they gave in one of the admirable Cottier Chamber Project’s final concerts.

It’s testament to the players’ talents that they won their college’s Dunbar-Gerber chamber music prize, and their charisma and enthusiasm were well on display in a nicely contrasted programme.

First up was the Fourth String Quartet by Glasgow composer Thomas Wilson (who died in 2001) and it’s difficult to imagine a piece that packs more incident and drama into a single 20-minute movement. The Csengele players rose to it all well, in a vivid, confidently paced performance in which everyone got the chance to shine – violist Christine Anderson in particular made her mark in some assertive playing early on. All four clearly relished the piece’s striking mix of unashamed modernism and heart-on-sleeve emotion, and although there were a few rough edges, they only added to the immediacy of the performance. Gripping stuff.

It seemed a bit strange, then, that Schumann’s joyful Piano Quintet took a while to warm up. The first two movements, although effective, really needed more fantasy to make them truly captivating – they came across as workmanlike rather than inspirational.

First violinist Eva Demeter gave some beautifully sultry interjections in the mournful slow movement, though, and cellist David Munn was rich and characterful. And things soon exploded into life in a helter-skelter, properly playful scherzo and an energetic finale.

Rating: ***