Schubert on the sunny side

{TABLE} Quartet in G K156 ............... Mozart Clarinet Quintet ................ Weber Octet ........................... Schubert {/TABLE} THE second instalment of the weekend's Schubert, celebration at the National Concert Hall was built around a performance of one of the composer's sunniest works, the Octet of 1824.

Schubert modelled the piece quite closely on Beethoven's Septet, adding a second violin to the older composer's instrumentation of string trio, double bass, clarinet, bassoon and horn. But he didn't manage to emulate the earlier work's immediate popularity - the editors of the New Schubert Edition have been unable to trace any public performances between the premiere in 1827 and a revival in 1861.

The Octet, which includes some of the composer's most immediately appealing and genial writing, has long held a special place in music lovers affections, as was witnessed by the large turnout for Saturday's performance by the Brindisi String Quartet and members of Michael Collins's London Winds ensemble.

The performance was strongest in the wind department, with Michael Collins's clarinet playing providing the most consistent pleasure and the general impression, reinforced by some roughness from the string quartet and some gruffness from the double bass, was more al fresco than polished.

There was polish aplenty in the first half, in Weber's Clarinet Quintet, where Michael Collins was both able and willing to wring every last ounce of delight from Weber's distinctively perky clarinet writing.

The players of the Brindisi Quartet - on a first visit to Dublin, although they are well known in Northern Ireland where, for a period in the early 1990s, they had a residency at the University of Ulster - seemed more at home in Weber than they had been in Mozart, where their playing of the early Quartet in G, K156, failed to rise above routine.