As well as Antony Brannick on piano, this concert featured wind instrument players, with Tamsin Curror on clarinet, Diana Doherty on oboe, Bob Shaw on horn and David Buck on bassoon. Their abilities and the scope of their instruments came over.
The concert opened with a solo by Antony Brannick, Mozart’s energetic piano concerto in C minor (K457). The same composer’s horn concerto no 2 (K417) was lively and rousing. It was followed by film music from “The Mission” by Morricone, the haunting “Gabriel’s Oboe” and the atmospheric “The Watermill” by Ronald Binge, both oboe and piano. The clarinet featured in Pierne’s quirky “Canzonetta”. The first half finished with two pieces for bassoon, Ord Hume’s cheerful “Carnaval” and Ashlyn’s comic song “The Bassoon” in which the listener’s imagination fills in whenever the bassoon substitutes for a word,
In the second half all the musicians united for Mozart’s harmonious quintet for piano and winds in E flat (K452).