Razumovsky Ensemble

4 / 5 stars
Wigmore Hall, London

Since cellist Oleg Kogan started the Razumovsky Ensemble in 1998, inviting close colleagues to join him for chamber music recitals, the idea has burgeoned. There's now a Razumovsky Trust that sponsors outstanding young musicians, and a Razumovsky Academy that offers specialist coaching. A lunchtime concert at the Wigmore Hall was the first showcase for the talents that have been nurtured by the fledgling academy. The same evening, some of those who teach there - all soloists and leading orchestral players in their own right - joined forces for a typical Razumovsky programme of Mozart and Schoenberg.

These players play together only occasionally, which means there isn't a hint of routine about their performances, just a vividly communicated relish for playing chamber music at such a high level of accomplishment. Nothing was taken for granted; everyone listened and watched what their colleagues were doing with a hawk-like intensity that never replaced instinctive musicianship. The way in which the two viola players, Krzysztof Chorzelski and Philip Dukes, shared ideas and inflections in the opening movement of Mozart's C major String Quintet was just one example of perfect chamber-music manners.

The two violinists, Winfried Rademacher and David Alberman, dovetailed perfectly, though a few of their phrases in the slow movement seemed unnecessarily truncated.

With second cellist David Cohen augmenting the quintet, the performance of Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht was equally absorbing. Every one of the thematic transformations that bind the work together was perfectly fashioned, with the members of the group sharing responsibility for mapping the complex emotional journey.