It was the sonically adventurous, shiveringly atmospheric cello piece by Latvian composer Preteris Vasks that proved to be the first showstopper of this enjoyably esoteric evening. Dutch cellist Hadewych van Gent began the pianissimo movement of Vasks’ Gramata Cellam by creating a build-up of whistling harmonic effects on the A string, followed by a yearning feather-light improvisation in the cello’s upper registers that suddenly plunged vertiginously bass-wards.

Since their eponymous 2011 debut, Three Cane Whale have kept it small without losing scale. A trio of Spiro’s Alex Vann, Get The Blessing’s Pete Judge, and guitarist Paul Bradley, together they often often recorded plein air, on hillsides, above waterfalls, in ancient churches and old barns.

As Steven Isserlis announced just before the final work, in more senses than one, of a five-day revelation, the 79 year old Fauré’s last letter told his wife that “at the moment I am well, very well, despite the little bout of fatigue which is caused by the end of the Quartet. I am happy with everything, and I should like everyone to be happy all around me, and everywhere”.

Earlier this year, Steven Isserlis curated a revelatory Sheffield Chamber Music Festival spotlighting Saint-Saëns, with plentiful Fauré towards the end. Now it’s the younger composer’s turn, marking his death 100 years ago on 4 November 1924, but his mentor has more than a look-in over five concerts featuring six bright stars, "Team Fauré".

Last Monday my colleague Boyd Tonkin was delighted by the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective’s playing at Hatfield House – and on Thursday it was my turn to be impressed by their colourful Wigmore Hall recital, which featured the marvellous clarinettist Carlos Ferreira in Bartók and Brahms.

“Sero sed serio”: so runs the Salisbury family motto on the carved coat-of-arms in the lavishly panelled and painted Marble Hall of Hatfield House. “Late, but in earnest”. The first adjective certainly doesn’t apply to any member of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, five of whom performed in the Hall for one of the centrepiece events of the 13th Hatfield House Music Festival.

We vividly remember the image of Martin Lovett, the cellist of the legendary Amadeus Quartet, bursting out laughing. He tells his favourite true travel story.

 After boarding a plane, the Amadeus Quartet has taken its seats and Martin is just about to strap his cello into the seat next to him when a fellow traveller approaches him. Oh no, marvels the inquisitive man, there's a whole string quartet on board. "How many are there in a string quartet?" comes the sudden question. Martin answers spontaneously and with deep conviction: "Five!".

“Saint-Saëns: The Renaissance Man” proclaimed the big screen at the first remarkable programme I attended within the 2024 Sheffield Chamber Music Festival. The same epithet could be applied to this year’s curator, Steven Isserlis, so remarkable a cellist that one forgets until coming face to face with his other talents what a unique speaker and programmer he is.

Advice to young musicians, as given at several “how to market your career” seminars: don’t begin a biography with “one of the finest xxxs of his/her/their generation”. From my side, I’m allowed to use it occasionally: surely Timothy Ridout is the finest viola-player of his generation, and last night he struck sparks off four other artists at the top of their game: violinists Maria Włoszczowska and Tim Crawford, fellow viola-player Ting-Ru Lai and cellist Tim Posner

All three works in the second of this week’s Neville Marriner centenary concerts from the ensemble he founded vindicated their intention to reign for ever and ever. Those very words as set by Handel in his “Hallelujah” Chorus were treated fugally by Mendelssohn in the coruscating finale of his Octet, and as part of her own homage in the Partita for String Octet, Sally Beamish approached them very differently. Her ethereal fugue deserves immortality, too.