Music events to treasure in Leamington and Warwick

APPROPRIATELY enough, Friday’s concert at the Spa Centre’s studio theatre was a tribute to Leamington-born composer and writer Robert Simpson.

With Blue Plaque safely in place in Rosefield Street, just a stone’s throw from the Spa Centre, Coull worked hard to overcome the dryness of the theatre to play works by Haydn, Beethoven and Robert Simpson.

With greater gusto than ever, Roger Coull led the quartet through the C major ‘Bird’ Quartet – one of Haydn’s better proportioned and most humorous efforts. Simpson’s Gaussian Curve Quartet No 7 – a gentle tender opening to this one continuous movement rising to a peak of activity (vivace) before fading back to its gentle opening pace - was an elegant performance. This piece was Simpson’s choice for Coull’s repertoire when their relationship grew in the early 1980’s in Warwick.

Beethoven’s mammoth Rasoumovsky Quartet No 2 was given its second airing of the week, having been splendidly performed by Coull to a full house at the breeze-block music centre at Warwick Arts Centre the day before. This earlier performance sounded better for the absence of heavy drapes, soft furnishings and absorbent carpeting.

The long wait for a return visit by the astonishingly talented Callum Smart, was well worth it. ince his brilliant performance of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in October 2009 with Warwickshire Symphony Orchestra, he has grown six inches, won the string section of the 2010 BBC Young Music and settled in well to the Chetham’s School of Music régime. He is an enormous talent and his first public performance of Dvorak’s Violin Concerto on Saturday evening, an event to treasure. Sadly, I fear we may not see him in Warwick for a long time as he will be very busy elsewhere.

Warwickshire Symphony Orchestra’s string sections are now much enhanced, particularly the cellos, and, combined with outstanding brass and wind sections, they delivered an enterprising prelude to Wagner’s Die Meistersinger and a confident performance of Brahms’ Second Symphony.

Clive Peacock