The idea of a concert of chamber music among friends conjures up very special images. The intimacy of the social relationship is expected to transfer into a style of musicmaking at once more free and relaxed. Geniality and convivial high spirits can bring an extra dimension to the music-making, and one that's not easy to deliver on demand.
The conviviality was certainly there in abundance at the Law Society on Tuesday, when the Limerick Music Association presented a concert by an ensemble centred around the English clarinettist and LMA regular, Michael Collins. But the music-making was very much of a public style, and, to my ears, seemed to be aimed at a much larger venue and public than suited the scale of the President's Hall of the Law Society.
Pianist Kathryn Stott seemed uncomfortable in Brahms's G major Violin Sonata with the sturdy and slightly severe Isabelle van Keulen. Stott's chord voicings often sounded strangely soloistic (often with the top notes emphasised) and togetherness of spirit seemed in surprisingly short supply.
She gave the impression of feeling altogether more at home in Schubert's Trout Quintet, with Van Keulen, James Boyd (viola), Peter Dixon (cello) and Atilla Martos (double bass). This was about as high-powered a Trout as I've ever heard, with super-charged double bass and viola lines - Schubert for the age of ubiquitous amplified music.
The characteristics of heft and thrust persisted in Beethoven's Septet, though without the intensity of the Schubert. The wind players - Michael Collins on clarinet, Stephen Stirling on horn - and the cellist stood slightly apart from a performance where the in-your-face presentation was consistent enough to become wearing.
