We managed to get to a couple of concerts at the Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival last week. The what? I hear you ask. Peasmarsh is a tiny village to the northwest of Rye, with a diminutive church. Violinist Anthony Marwood and cellist Richard Lester have organised this event for a decade: it involves a series of concerts over four days in Peasmarsh Church.
We attended the opening concert on Thursday evening, which was full. Saabs and Volvos were parked by the dozen along the side-road, and the cut-glass accents of Middle England much in evidence A garrulous lady in the row in front said "This is most of the glitterati of East Sussex", as if the audience was peopled by an alien species not usually seen in public. We failed to recognise anyone except a charming woman who had been on my cookery course a couple of months ago - an indication of how far we still have to go socially. Some brave souls were doing a mini-Glyndebourne with picnics. Others were sheltering with cooked food in a marquee erected in the cemetery.
Thursday evening was in fact fairly clement, and the mythical memories of English summers seemed to be repeated. At the Saturday lunchtime concert, however, it was drear, with a steady mizzle of rain as we went in. Unperturbed, the audience hunkered down in their fleeces and tweeds and listened happily to the programmes.
If I have to be honest, the music was a bit uneven. The term "chamber music" seemed to be defined fairly broadly, to include, for example, Britten's suite no. 3 for solo cello, and Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata. The Britten suite was beautifully played, but I had the feeling with the Beethoven - as indeed with the Brahms C Minor Quartet on the Saturday - that expressive playing was sacrificed to the task of dealing with the sheer difficulties of technique. The high point for me was the Mozart Clarinet Quintet, with some beautiful playing from clarinettist Timothy Orpen. A joy.
Antony Mair
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