Review of Contemporary Consort, King’s Lynn Town Hall (EDP 16 July)

The average ‘music-lover’ may be inclined to expect the burglar alarm that went off near the start to be indistinguishable from the music but a decent-sized audience enjoyed this King’s Lynn Festival event of largely contemporary material. Schubert, represented by his lush String Trio in B flat, wasn’t present but an astonishingly young Benjamin LA Picard – represented by his melodically experimental and vibrant Diversions for clarinet, violin, viola and cello, was. As was an engaging David Matthews, informatively interviewed by Festival Artistic Director Ambrose Miller to establish the ‘felt’ and tonal basis of Matthews’ modern music, as mentored by Benjamin Britten and in helping to orchestrate Mahler’s 10^th symphony. We saw how committed Sarah Thurlow (clarinet), Tom Hankey (violin), Vanessa McNaught (viola) and Ben Davies (cello) – all excellent - are to Mathews’ player-centred pieces: the full range of each instrument explored and – as in his Roman miniature Actaeon, in which the hunter is torn apart by his own hounds after seeing the goddess Diana naked – the player’s physical and emotional limits too. The argument for more repertoire for this combination is made with the closing performance of Matthews’ atmospheric and energetic Clarinet Quartet.