Oxford Chamber Music Festival
Tuesday 4th - Saturday 8th July

For music-lovers in Oxford, it sounds almost too good to be true. 25 of the world's finest and most respected chamber musicians, gathered together for a week of performing chamber music spanning several centuries and styles, in some of the finest venues the city can boast. A roll-call of the names Artistic Director Priya Mitchell has managed to assemble for the first Oxford Chamber Music Festival is startlingly impressive: Imogen Cooper, Melvyn Tan, Natalie Clein and Steven Isserlis are just some of the famous names appearing in this week-long musical orgy. The diversity of repertoire, crammed into 6 days, is equally exciting, ranging from Bach 'cello suites (to mark the 250th anniversary of the composer's death) to an evening of Russian tango music played by accordionist Igor Outkine.

The opening concert, in St Antony's college on Tuesday night, proved that the festival will more than live up to expectations. It opened with a wonderfully accomplished, spirited performance of Beethoven's Septet in E flat op. 20. This work, actually rather un-Beethovenian in its light-heartedness and plenitude of musical jokes, provided a perfect demonstration of all the qualities that make chamber music, and this festival in particular, so rewarding. The frequent unexpected dynamic shifts, accents, and changes and harmonic direction gave the performers ample opportunity to enjoy the intimacy of communication, and the thrill of weaving seven idiosyncratic lines into a coherent whole. The individual players did, however, get a chance to shine. Hanna Weinminster, most notably, delighted the audience with her technically superb, wonderfully sonorous performance on the virtuosic violin line. One of the interesting features about the Oxford Chamber Music Festival is the way in which it brings famous instrumentalists together in novel combinations. Any fears that this might result in a lack of unanimity or understanding were immediately assuaged by this opening septet. The musicians seemed to be in complete agreement, right down to the weight and length of the individual accents.

The concert ended with a splendidly energetic rendition of Brahms's Piano Quintet in F minor, op. 34. Sandwiched between these epic works were two little-known gems: Anton Webern's Two Pieces for 'cello and pano. Another major strength of this series is the positive effort that has been made to include less familiar works. In this millennium year, the focus is on pieces written towards the end of centuries. These pieces, written in 1899 before Webern famously embraced dodecaphonism, are in a sensuously lyrical, post-romantic style; Natalie Clein captivated those listening with a breath-takingly poised performance.

Details of the remaining concerts in the Oxford Chamber Music Festival are listed in the Concerts section. For those unlucky enough to miss this musical feast, several of the concerts will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in the new year.

Matthew Rogers, 5 / 7 / 00