In the decade since its inception, co-directors violinist David Adams and cellist Alice Neary have nurtured their Penarth Chamber music festival from its small beginnings to a jam-packed, ambitiously programmed five-day event. With a remarkable array of top instrumentalists, singers and contributors, this year’s 10th anniversary lineup showed just what a classy affair it’s become. What makes it special is the sense of connection and trust that’s developed between players and audience, allowing George Crumb’s extraordinary Black Angels quartet to be as enthusiastically received as Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge which preceded it.
For their gala celebration, the festival decamped from its base at the Pavilion on Penarth’s seashore to the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, where many of the players also teach. Lucy Wakeford was the harpist in Ravel’s septet, Introduction and Allegro, where quiet intimacy is balanced with the almost flamboyant virtuosity which was the work’s raison d’être, part of what was essentially a campaign to promote the new double action pedal harp by the makers Érard. Advertising was never more honourably conceived nor cast such a spell.
