This evening's Endellion String Quartet concert in St Bart's

[Robin Orton]

I'd be interested to hear others' views about this. For me, it wasn't quite as exciting as I'd hoped. Perhaps we were sitting in an acoustically bad spot (though the bloke sitting next to me was obviously enjoying himself), perhaps the thundery atmosphere didn't help, perhaps I just wasn't in the mood. The Janacek was the only work of the three I was reasonably familiar with. I first heard it in a live performance in St Barnabas's Church in Dulwich two or three years ago - forgotten who by - and on that occasion it really bowled me over, but this time it came over to me as a bit of a self-indulgent expressionist rant. The Haydn is clearly a fine work, but for some reason I didn't feel convinced that the performance, although very beautiful, did it full justice. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the Mendelssohn, and, although I'm not sure that I've heard it before (the lovely scherzo seemed to ring a faint bell), I got the impression that I was listening to an outstanding performance.

We left it too late to book for the concerts at the Dolphin this year, they'd both sold out. What were Florilegium like?