The week is a concerto in four movements. Allegro, andante, vivace, con anima. The first is at the Swiss Embassy on Ailesbury Road, where the quartet is primed. The guests are seated and the pianist, Finghin Collins, is poised over the keyboards.
This is the first social event at the Switzerland residence since the new ambassador, Eric Pfister, arrived with his Japanese wife, Kimiko Pfister, about two months ago. There is great excitement. The cocktail reception is to launch the new CD from Collins who, as winner of the 1999 Clara Haskil Competition in Switzerland, was recorded live playing music by Mozart and Beethoven in Lausanne at the competition. Tonight there are canapes, cheeses, cocktails and ambassadors to beat the band. Breathing in quietly, we all count a haon, a do, a tri (silently, of course), and Mozart's piano concerto no. 12 in A major begins. The first movement is allegro.
Other pianists in the audience, listening appreciatively, include Collins's older sister Dearbhla. Jane Carty, director of the RTE Musician of the Future, is here also, remembering how the 22-year-old pianist won the competition in 1994. Next week, he's off to Houston, Texas to play with the city's symphony orchestra. His parents, Brid and Jim Collins, who are here also, are not sure where the musical talent comes from. Neither of them play, but the pianist's great aunt Julia Coakley was a well-known fiddle player in Dunmanway, where his father is from. But then again, on his mother's side, the Purcells of Affane outside Cappoquin in Co Waterford were musical too. More music lovers include the Dutch ambassador, Peter van Vliet and his wife, Suzanne van Vliet, who has a painting exhibition coming up in December at the Gorry Gallery, Molesworth Street. She'll be the only non-Irish artist in the group show. The quartet is composed of violinists Conor O'Brien and Adrian Hart, cellist Kate Ellis and viola player Lisa Dowdall. Yes, they practice for hours each day except for Hart, the man from Hull, who says "an hour in front of the telly" is enough for him. "It has to be a sub-titled film or a documentary," he adds, with a smile. Younger violinists take note.