Grainger Quartet x Hong Kong Sinfonietta
City Hall Concert Hall
Reviewed: Jun 24
This five-item, conductor-less programme, ranging from Vivaldi to Grieg, might have proved to be little more than pot-pourri. But the subtle progression of instrumentation and styles created a coherently attractive evening. Members of the Grainger (string) Quartet played central roles as soloists and section leaders.
The programme opened with Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No3 for nine solo strings, in which every nuance was distinct against the hall's dry acoustic. Bach's puzzling two-chord middle movement was neatly substituted by the slow movement of his Violin Sonata No6, while the relentless drive in the outer movements benefited from the absence of an overstated pulse.
Dvorak's Serenade Op44 is scored for a similarly sized ensemble of mostly wind instruments. The drama of the third movement was diminished in places by insensitive balance, and the second movement suffered from momentarily deviant sounds and distracting foot-tapping from the clarinets.