Berlin-based Vision is notable on many counts, as this chamber Prom amply demonstrated. They identify as a band as much as conventional quartet, their mission being to find inspiration “outside the classical bubble”, crossing boundaries of genre and mixing jazz, rock, minimalism, funk and fun. They perform from memory and in a first half of quartets by Bloch and Dvořák, the absence of stands and scores made for an appealing directness of communication, with each other as well as the audience.
That air of spontaneity suited Dvořák’s penultimate Quartet, Op 106 in G major, particularly well, underlining the composer’s irrepressible sense of melody and, too, his capacity for moving – almost on the turn of a chord – from bright major mode into dark minor, before re-emerging into sunshine. The vision players embraced the range of emotions – nostalgia, joy and exuberance – with instinctive flair.
