Ten years ago the Borletti Buitoni Trust handed out its first awards to young professional musicians, arguing that financial support alone wasn't enough. Pianist Jonathan Biss and clarinettist Martin Fröst were among the first to benefit from the BBT's balance of money and mentoring – and they, along with 17 other award-winners from the past decade, were back for this celebration weekend.
Alongside masterclasses, a debate and late-night foyer concerts came three main-stage programmes of chamber music, and if it was the participation of BBT's founding trustee Mitsuko Uchida at the piano that ensured a packed hall, she was by no means the only star.
Friday's concert closed with Schubert's Piano Trio in B flat, with an energised Uchida joined by the perfectly balanced pairing of violinist Veronika Eberle and cellist Marie-Elisabeth Hecker. But the spotlight that night was on woodwind. Partnered with the Elias String Quartet, Fröst was consistently mesmerising in Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, his tone silky and seamless, every note meaningful. Alexei Ogrintchouk – already principal oboe at the Concertgebouw Orchestra when he won his BBT award in 2007 – harnessed a huge range of tone colour for Britten's Temporal Variations, ending with sustained notes that had a saxophone-like richness. Pianist Llŷr Williams was expressive but too reticent to match Ogrintchouk in Britten's more aggressive passages.
The first half of Saturday evening's programme changed due to artist illness, but as we got to hear Alina Ibragimova playing Bach and Uchida playing Schumann's Waldszenen, disappointment was minimal.
Ibragimova's E major Partita had the deceptive simplicity and vivid character – bordering on insouciance in this case – that are this violinist's hallmarks in Bach. She was joined by Biss, Hélène Clément, Nicolas Altstaedt and Matthew McDonald, on piano, viola, cello and bass respectively, for Schubert's Trout Quintet. It was buoyant and punchy – yet each irresistible melody was played unassumingly at first, almost as a thought in progress. That touch of understatement only added to the impact of the whole.
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