THE enterprise of the series of dinner concerts being staged throughout the year in the wonderfully elegant setting of the House for an Art Lover in Bellahouston Park is reflected in the variety of instrumental formats testing the space and acoustic of the music room.
This week's concert brought the unusual grouping of clarinet, cello and piano in the form of the Emiro Ensemble a five-year-old London-based group, comprised of Sarah Miller (clarinet), Charlotte Eksteen (cello) and Neil Roxburgh (piano), making their first appearance north of the Border. Music societies in Scotland might care to investigate this group (they can be heard on CD).
The dedicated repertoire for the instrumental format may be limited, but what the Emiro Ensemble played of it - extracts from CPE Bach's charming miniature sonatas and Vincent d'Indy's ravishing Clarinet Trio, along with an exuberant performance of Beethoven's sparkling trio (nailing for ever, surely, the misconception that old Ludwig van was humourless) - suggested a strong, firm and highly motivated group of musicians, clear about what they are doing.
Sarah Miller also played a spectacularly acrobatic version of The Carnival of Venice, while Neil Roxburgh, in Schubert's G flat Impromptu, highlighted what is likely to become the main issue of this marvellous room - the relatively poor quality of the piano, in terms of its general sound (hard, dry, boxy), intonation (unstable), and pedal action (dodgy mechanism). With Murray McLachlan coming to give a recital in September, this issue will return.
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