Busch Ensemble, St Peter's Wallingford (From The Oxford Times)

Busch Ensemble, St Peter's Wallingford

2:33pm Friday 30th December 2011 in Music By Nicola Lisle

There was a truly international flavour at St Peter’s in Wallingford last week when the Busch Ensemble took to the stage — six musicians, representing six countries and three continents. These are very much the new kids on the block — the ensemble was founded last year by cellist Jonathan Bloxham and violinists Mathieu van Bellen and Soh-Yon Kim, inspired by the discovery of unrecorded chamber works by German violin legend Adolf Busch.

But the ensemble doesn’t just exist to play Busch’s music, and on Wednesday evening they took the St Peter’s audience on an exciting and invigorating journey through two other masterpieces of the chamber repertoire — Mozart’s angst-ridden String Quintet in G Minor, and Schoenberg’s evocative Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), two wonderfully contrasting pieces that showcased the versatility of these young musicians.

With van Bellen very much in the driving seat, the Mozart was delivered with an almost overpowering energy, the mood of agitation fully realized and sustained right through to the final, a surprisingly jaunty and upbeat Allegro. The use of mutes during the third movement, the Allegro ma non troppo, helped to throw the mood of the final into sharp relief. This was a compelling performance, at times overwhelming in its ferocity, but always finely controlled and impressing with its technical mastery and virtuosity.

Anything that followed could have been an anti-climax, but Schoenberg’s atmospheric setting of verses from Weib und Welt (Woman and World), by German poet Richard Dehmel, was so skilfully and engagingly performed that it was impossible to resist. From the slow, intriguing opening, representing a stark, moonlit wood, to the agitated confession of a ‘fallen’ woman and the warmth of the finale after her male companion has forgiven her, this was a thoroughly captivating piece of musical storytelling.

This exceptional ensemble is one to watch — I predict they will soon be giving the more established chamber ensembles a run for their money.