Lovers of music living in the Romsey area have been fortunate for some years as the town's Summer Chamber Music Festival has been able to attract top-class musicians from all parts of the globe to the town. 

Under the guiding hand of dynamic local violinist Laura Rickard, the musical fare offered to audiences has never been less than stimulating, and is often inspiring. Nevertheless, these are challenging times, prompting Laura to organise a complete weekend of concerts and workshops appropriately called 'Winterfest'.

The second concert of the Winterfest, in addition to giving advance publicity for the June Festival, was a celebration of great chamber music, held on Sunday, January 21. 

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The main item on the programme, which featured the resident string quartet of violinists Laura Rickard, Luke Hsu, violist Marthe Husum and cellist Rainer Crosett, was Beethoven's C# minor Quartet Op.131. The concert opened with one of Haydn's masterly late quartets, played with scrupulous attention to dynamic contrasts. An emotional, basically tonal short stand-alone movement by the youthful Anton Webern provided an equally intense and gripping musical experience, while the Beethoven demonstrated to an enthusiastic audience the ability of the players to plumb the full technical and emotional range of one of the most demanding pieces in the chamber music repertoire.

All this augurs extremely well for the forthcoming Summer Festival.

Review by Jeremy Neville