The second concert in this year’s West End Micro Music Festival took place at Redeemer Lutheran Church on Friday night.  Titled Alchemical Processes it featured a mix of early and modern works written or arranged for some combination of string quartet (Jennifer Murphy, Madlen Breckbill – violins, Laila Zakzook – viola, Philip Bergman – cello), harpsichord (Alexander Malikov) and clarinet or bass clarinet (Brad Cherwin).

It started out with Bach’s Concerto in A Major BWV 1055 arranged for string quartet, harpsichord and clarinet.  It was enjoyable.  Originally written for harpsichord and string orchestra, any loss of richness in the strings by only having one player on a part was compensated by the additional colours of the clarinet.

Next was Cassandra Miller’s About Bach for string quartet.  It features one violin playing in a super high register while the other three players play a figure or two underneath.  It’s quite interesting for a few minutes but it goes on.  And just when you think it’s about to finish it goes on.  And then it goes on again.  I went from quite interested to a bit bored to quite irritated to wondering whether to bolt for the exit.  Didn’t work for me.

After the interval. we got an arrangement of John Dowland’s Lachrimae Verae for bass clarinet and string quartet.  It was pleasant enough but I’m not sure Dowland really carries this kind of weight.  I think I prefer lute and voice!

The most interesting piece on the programme was Thomas Adès’ four movement work Alchymia for clarinet and string quartet.  The Guardian called this “simply one of the best chamber music compositions of our time” and it really is good.  It’s quite varied in mood with a loud and chaotic first movement, a complex and interesting second movement and a third movement that’s far more lachrymose than the Dowland.  But the best is left for the final movement which combines interesting writing for clarinet with a lovely melody for violin backed up by a lot of pizzicato from the other strings.  It was really enjoyable and I need to listen to it again.  Very well played indeed by all concerned.

This concert will be repeated tonight (Saturday) at 7.30pm at Redeemer Lutheran.