Artiste: Natacha Kudritskaya

Conceptually, the programme of descending and rising fourths offered a real treat: in practice, the musicians' skill was in danger of being lost as they attempted to recover from their opening gimmickry.

Baritone Jaakko Koretkangas and pianist Nino Gvetadze prove the stars of an evening of great variety ending with a thrilling scene from an obscure Hindemith opera.

An introductory reading by local writer Philip Pullman was an appropriate introduction to the “Dusk to Dawn” concert, one of the last in this year’s Oxford Chamber Music Festival (themed “Fairytales and Fantasy”). The collision of a light-hearted surface with darker undertones was not just in Pullman’s retelling of the Grimm stories, but pervaded Artistic Director Priya Mitchell’s programming.