AS usual the standard of musicianship at the annual Winchester Chamber Music Festival was beyond reproach.

The concerts, which ran from April 30 to May 3, were expertly put together to afford a blend of the familiar and the less well known.

Attendances were high, with many performances selling out, and for the first time there was a concert in the Theatre Royal, illustrating that Winchester’s appetite for great music is far greater than the capacity the Discovery Centre allows.

This year there was a higher than usual number of guest performers which gave the thread of Czech music from Dvorák to Martinu space to develop.

Matthew Truscott (violin) and Philip Higham (cello) gave a formidable performance of Martinu’s Duo no 1. The Lawson Trio performed Dvorák’s Op 21 Piano Trio and, in a transatlantic thread, they showed us how best to approach Ives’ quirky, experimental Piano Trio.

Robert Plane contributed to several concerts and his luminous performance of Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet was the eagerly anticipated late-night offering in St Lawrence Church.

It was good to welcome Ivan Ludlow back to the festival. His passionate reading of Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin song cycle, superbly accompanied by Daniel Tong, was well worth the wait.

The festival finished with a rousing performance of Dvorák’s Piano Quartet Op 87, with Scott Dickinson’s fine viola joining Tamsin Waley-Cohen (violin), Kate Gould (cello) and Daniel Tong.

BRUCE EDWARDS