Concert review: Beare's Chamber Music Festival

It takes some doing to add something truly exciting to London’s already brimming music festival scene. Yet the inaugural Beare’s Chamber Music Festival – planned as a biennial event – achieved this even before the first notes sounded in Cadogan Hall. As artistic curator, Janine Jansen had assembled a stellar line-up of players over two star-studded December nights, of which this was the first, followed by a second at Wigmore Hall.

First came Schubert’s String Quintet from Quatuor Ébène and Kian Soltani: they combined sleek playing with plenty of tenderness, their hesitations between phrases often daringly long-held, before culminating in a wickedly virtuosic final gallop.

Next, Strauss’s Sextet from Capriccio – with a silkily mellow-toned Sitkovetsy leading rich, movingly close conversations with Feng, Ridout, Grosz, Okamoto and Blendulf.

Then an unforgettable reading of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht from Jansen with Sitkovetsky, Grosz, Ridout, Soltani and Blendulf. Ridout and Blendulf magically set in motion the work’s hushed opening tread, immediately transporting us to the moonlit woodland evoked so powerfully by Schoenberg’s music. This gave way to a gripping narrative, the colour and detail of every phrase beautifully shaped, but never losing sight of the piece’s architecture. It was a mighty applause that eventually broke the closing stillness. There was no encore, and quite right: how could you better a night already transfigured?

CHARLOTTE GARDNER