Work: String Quintet in C major, K515

The Belcea Quartet gave us bleak despair in their Shostakovich, but joined by Antoine Tamestit, they also gave us joyful Mozart and life-affirming Brahms.

In the penultimate Proms Chamber Music lunchtime concert, the Armida Quartett and viola player Lise Berthaud packed a intense but well-balanced programme in an hour which was like having a perfect three-course lunch.

There are few works in the classical repertoire as expansive as Mozart’s Quintet in C major, K515 – the opening Allegro is actually longer than any movement of its kind before Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony whilst its spacious character seems to prefigure Schubert.