Merlin Music Society, Blake Theatre (From South Wales Argus)

Merlin Music Society, Blake Theatre

1:35pm Monday 1st February 2010

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Generosity arrives no more unsparing than it did with the young Harpham String Quartet and clarinettist James Meldrum at the Merlin’s first concert of 2010.

That the quartet began life seven years ago as a quintet, with Mr Meldrum himself in the clarinet seat, showed in the respectful confidence with which for a still-young ensemble they tackled two of the most complete works for the medium – the clarinet quintets of Mozart and Brahms.

The centrepiece, a more modest though intense essay separating two bulkier discussions, was Howells’ Rhapsodic Quintet Op.

31, a piece they played with equal authority and, in the case of the family connection between the composer and the quartet’s founder and first violin Anna Harpham, some pride of ownership.

The link is strengthened by the musicians’ relationship with the Royal College of Music, where Howells was a much-loved and influential teacher. The busy Harpham were officially named the RSC’s ‘rising young stars’ in 2008, an accolade that even two years ago must have seemed grudging, for this group’s star has surely risen though it is perhaps not yet pulsating in the firmament.

Their generosity lay in the choice of works, the Mozart allowing one to concentrate on the clarinet, though not at the expense of the strings, and the other two demonstrating how the solo instrument is more resolutely embedded in the overall sound.

Indeed, Mr Meldrum was piping assertively whenever opportunities presented themselves but it was his ensemble instincts, so necessary in the two Romantic pieces, that in the Mozart helped produce such a practised and integrated performance.

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