Four clarinets in Brodick

On Saturday 19th November, the Fell Clarinet Quartet delighted a big audience with a brilliant programme of just about everything, from Mozart to jazz, with a glorious mixture in between. The quartet was unusual in that everyone played everything, so there was a Musical Chairs shift-round between numbers, where someone new took the top line and a fresh player picked up the hefty bass clarinet, with its seductive, smoky tone.

Colin Blainey, Marianne Rawles, Lenny Syers and Helen Bywater met when they were students at the Royal Northern College of Music, and since then have combined their fabulous individual technique with a collective interest in music of every conceivable kind. Their playing is formidably accomplished, yet great fun. Eddie McGuire’s delicious Celtic Knotwork, which they played last time they were on Arran, with the composer present, had lost none of its magical charm. His new piece, too, based on a railway journey from Glasgow to London and back, was both funny and evocative, while the ever-delectable Piazzolla found a new sound quality in these lovely instruments, arguably the closest possible sound to the human voice. The whole evening was a huge pleasure, and we must not leave it as long as nine years before the Fell Quartet come again.