Romain Guyot (clarinet), RTE Vanbrugh String Quartet

Quartet in A minor, Op 51, No 2 - Brahms Quartet No 1, Op 7 (1908) - Bartok Quintet for Clarinet and strings, Op 115 The more familiar the music of Bartok becomes the more he seems one of the last Romantics; so to place his Quartet No 1 between two soulful works by Brahms, as the Vanbrugh Quartet did on Sunday in the NCH, was in no way incongruous. Indeed, the passionate expressiveness which the players brought to the Bartok made up for a failure to realise fully the emotional depths of Brahms's Quartet No 2. Beneath the beguiling melodies and the surface sweetness of this work there is more than a hint of darkness which the richness of the music attempts to conceal.

The Vanbrugh Quartet was joined by Romain Guyot for Brahms's Clarinet Quintet. Here the feelings suppressed in the earlier work seemed to burst out: the dark sounds of the clarinet's bottom register and the slight edge of Guyot's tone contracted strongly with the smooth sound of the strings, ensuring that the full plangency of the music would make itself felt. A too creamy blend of wind and strings can be ravishing to listen to, but Brahms's late works, like those of Janacek, have an untamed vigour and the conventional ascription of autumnal melancholy is less than appropriate.

This recital grew in stature as it proceeded and Guyot's unsentimental approach to the Quintet made a powerful impression.