Performer: Jane Atkins

Is there any instrument more bittersweet than the viola? The violin does the acrobatics, the cello is more conventionally beautiful, but the viola sits in the middle of the orchestral palette like no other instrument. Neither high nor low, it’s perfectly placed to embody the contradictory and the conflicted, ideal for a sense of desire denied or of fulfilment deferred.

Edinburgh's Queen's Hall, combining centre stalls with a horseshoe of pews on two levels, boasts a wonderful chamber music acoustic. The attentive Sunday afternoon audience for the SCO Chamber Concert had no difficulty making out every nuance of the small forces present.