Roderick Williams, Nash Ensemble, Wigmore Hall review - sunshine and serenity

★★★★ RODERICK WILLIAMS, NASH ENSEMBLE, WIGMORE HALL Sunshine and serenity

A quicksilver 'Trout', and both Mahlers in mellow mood

The Nash Ensemble’s concerts dedicated to “Beethoven and the Romantics” not only trace the flowering of the Romantic spirit in music from the Vienna of the 1800s through a continent and across the century. They also give a place at the top table for works by once-sidelined helpmeets of the movement’s giants: Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, Alma Mahler.

Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, Wigmore Hall review - nine haute cuisine courses, twelve happy musicians

Sensuous and joyous French delights in two daytime concerts

How do they do it? Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective ticks all the boxes of diversity and reaching out to all ages without needing to draw attention to it all. The answer is quite simple: the repertoire – in Saturday’s morning and afternoon concerts, French chamber music both known and unfamiliar – is beautifully chosen and programmed, the performers all born communicators as well as musicians at the highest level.

Boris Giltburg, Wigmore Hall review - power and grace in elegies and monuments

★★★★★ BORIS GILTBURG, WIGMORE HALL Power and grace in elegies and monuments

Perfect lucidity in great music, with Medtner equal to Bach, Ravel and Chopin

A double-sided A4 sheet is better than a programme online only – the default for several London venues now – but the Wigmore Hall missed a vital trick in failing to tell us what Boris Giltburg intended in a transcendental sequence which should have been headed “death and remembrance”, He’s an eloquent writer, too; his own note would have been much better than the disconnected observations we got about Bach/Busoni, Ravel, Chopin and Medtner.

Leonskaja, Staatskapelle Streichquartett, Wigmore Hall review - Brahms the chameleon

★★★★★ LEONSKAJA, STAATSKAPELLE STREICHQUARTETT, WIGMORE HALL Brahms the chameleon

Every quick-change nuance in the first two Piano Quartets transcendentally realised

Epic-lyric magician Brahms wears a very adaptable garment for certain masterpieces: black on the outside with fur trimming, reversible to show its exquisitely wrought, variegated silk patterns on the inside.

Isabelle Faust, Alexander Melnikov, Wigmore Hall review - surprise and spontaneity

★★★★ ISABELLE FAUST, ALEXANDER MELNIKOV Surprise and spontaneity in Beethoven

Innovative and dynamic Beethoven on period instruments

Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov concluded their three-concert survey of Beethoven’s violin sonatas on the warmest day of the year. But the Wigmore Hall is always comfortable, and the temperature was well under control. The heat deterred the audience, but those who did attend made up with their impressive enthusiasm, unusual even for the ever-engaged Wigmore regulars.

Wigmore Soloists, Wigmore Hall review - superb Janáček

★★★★ WIGMORE SOLOISTS, WIGMORE HALL Superb Janáček

A new group starting to make its stylish and confident mark

Wigmore Soloists is such a good idea, and still at an early stage of its development. The group brings together top players to perform the wider chamber music repertoire, normally septets and upwards. The hall also gives the players a place they can call their home, plus a sprinkling of Wigmore branding to help them make their way in the world.

Jerusalem Quartet, Wigmore Hall review - shock and sophistication in ideally-proportioned Beethoven

★★★★★ JERUSALEM QUARTET, WIGMORE HALL Early, middle and late masterpieces in revelatory performances

Early, middle and late masterpieces in revelatory performances

Three Beethoven quartets, early, middle and late, in a single evening – inevitably as part of a cycle, like the Jerusalems’ Wigmore Hall triptych last night – is demanding on the audience, supremely tough on the players.

Angela Hewitt, Wigmore Hall review - grand tour in a luxury vehicle

From Bach to Ravel, the Canadian pianist displays hard-edged brilliance

The four years of Angela Hewitt’s globe-trotting “Bach Odyssey” confirmed time and again that she brings a nonpareil artistry and authority to the most demanding, and rewarding, of all keyboard repertoires. Yet the Canadian pianist, as we already knew, carries plenty of other arrows in her musical quiver.