The other Bank Holiday carnival was at Cadogan Hall. This was a Prom marathon with a difference: 50 artists packed into 12 concerts within three days. And at one point there were four string quartets on stage all playing at once.
This extravaganza was all in the cause of celebrating the tenth birthday of the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme. Founded by Adam Gatehouse (who also masterminded the entire weekend), the NGA programme selects between six and eight young professional musicians or ensembles every year, and offers them a two-year period of nurture — in the form of live broadcasts, solo spots with BBC orchestras, and studio recordings.
The scheme is something of a matchmaker as well. Although much of the weekend focused on solo star turns, the imaginatively planned programmes also celebrated some significant musical relationships. Such as that between the Kungsbacka Piano Trio and the viola player Lawrence Power whose NGA years overlapped, and whose Mozart Piano Quartet in E flat showed they still clearly enjoy each other’s company. The New York-based pianist Shai Wosner is certainly one to watch. After his Mozart Piano Concerto at the Proms last week, it was good to see him in his element as a chamber musician, with the outstanding viola player Antoine Tamestit in Schumann’s Adagio and Allegro in A flat; and with the American violinist Tai Murray and the fine Swedish cellist Andreas Brantelid in the delicious performance of Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No 2 in C minor on Sunday.
Polygamy is encouraged too. In a real programming coup, Meta4, the sparky young Finnish string quartet, were joined by the Psophos, Royal, and Pavel Haas Quartets for an Allegro for Four String Quartets, written in Amsterdam in 1845 by Johannes van Bree. The Pavel Haas Quartet had shown their versatility at the start of the weekend when, after their Beethoven, they were joined by the percussionist Colin Currie for a tingling performance of Alexander Goehr’s 14-minute work Since Brass, nor Stone . . . Earth and boundless sea also figured in the sounds and Shakespearean resonances evoked in this highly original and seductive BBC commission.
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Other high points? Well, too many to tell. But, after the experimental youthfulness of the Pavel Haas Quartet, it was good to feel the wisdom and ballast of the Jerusalem Quartet, one of NGA’s proudest alumni, in Haydn’s late String Quartet Op 77 No 1. Maxim Rysanov, viola, and Danjulo Ishizaka, cello, shared a very special recital of, respectively, Bach and Kod?ly. And, speaking of alumni, Alice Coote lifted the entire proceedings on to a different plane in her heart-rending performances of four of Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn songs, magnificently accompanied by Steven Osborne.
The irresistible violinist Jennifer Pike (a movingly perceptive Elgar Violin Sonata), the mezzo Daniela Lehner, and the period keyboard specialist Mahan Esfahani are among current beneficiaries. I hope Esfahani will sometimes allow himself to play a Steinway grand as well as harpsichord and fortepiano: he is a quite exceptionally gifted accompanist as well as soloist.