London Bridge Trio and guest artists fill Winchester's Theatre Royal

Members of the London Bridge Ensemble and the Heath Quartet enthralled a capacity audience at the Discovery Centre in the fourth event of the Winchester Chamber Music Festival. The main focus this year was Beethoven and Schumann, the music selected to highlight their musical development at specific times in their careers.

Whenever Brahms is mentioned, songs and symphonies often come straight to mind: after all, the man was the master of all things symphonic, even his piano sonatas being called “veiled symphonies” by his mentor, Schumann.

Members of the London Bridge Ensemble and the Heath Quartet enthralled a capacity audience at the Discovery Centre in the fourth event of the Winchester Chamber Music Festival. The main focus this year was Beethoven and Schumann, the music selected to highlight their musical development at specific times in their careers.

On Saturday at St James’s Church, the Nonsuch Singers presented a captivating programme titled “To the Field of Stars”. It was a compelling mix of recent and old music, predominantly works by living composers and composers from the 16th century. It culminated in the première of Gabriel Jackson’s newly commissioned work To the Field of Stars.

Michael Tippett died 14 years ago but his diverse canon has been relatively underrepresented since, the pacifist A Child of Our Time being perhaps the exception. In tonight’s Barbican outing, it was surprising but refreshing to see his Triple Concerto for violin, viola and cello, written in 1978–9, paired with Henk de Vlieger’s orchestral contraction of Wagner’s Ring cycle.