QUIDDITIES

On Saturday we went to King Place for the last in the concerts billed as John Woolrich and friends. This one was given by members of the Britten Sinfonia; a string sextet led by Thomas Gould plus Christopher Cowie on oboe and cor anglais. There were a couple of themes running through the concert. The first was the string sextet plus oboe. We had the full sextet in Strauss's Prelude to Capriccio and Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht, then a subset plus oboe in the Mozart Oboe Quartet. But only in Woolrich's Quiddities did all 7 performers come together.

But there was a literary subtext as well. Capriccio is of course famously based in the words or music dilemma and the prelude is supposedly the work of a composer whom the Countess Madeleine is dallying; her dalliance with both the composer and a librettist forms the engine of the plot. Then Schoenberg's piece is based on a poem by Richard Dehmel. Finally Woolrich's Quiddities is inspired by a Robert Walser short story, Lake Greifen.

This was an intelligent and involving programme, all beautifully played with some stylish Strauss and Mozart and a beautifully textured account of the Schoenberg. Woolrich's piece, with solo cor anglais rather than oboe was ellusive and I felt a little frustrated that the literary references were not familiar to me, so that I could not place how they linked to Woolrich's music. This latter was fascinating for his use of textures, with much plucking from the strings.

The programme booklet was admirably inexpensive (£1) but the information about the music itself was brief, evidently deliberately so; presumably encouraging us to listen rather than arrive with preconceptions.