Geoffrey Kinder reviews Ensemble 360 at the King’s Hall, Ilkley Young people today are….. terrific. There is so much talent around one worries that not all may find sufficient work that is worthy of them. It’s been a season of knock-out concerts, so many of them featuring young artists on the threshold of brilliant careers. We’ve heard the marvellously communicative Elizabeth Watts in lieder, with Simon Leper; Chloë Hanslip’s fiery violin playing with pianist Ashley Wass matching her temperamentally; the Sacconi Quartet giving such an intense performance of Smetana’s From my Life Quartet; and in the music of Roxana Panufnik we’ve heard from a young composer too. To end the season yet more youthful talent, Ensemble 360 who on this occasion brought along nine players to delight us.

They began with the Mozart Oboe Quartet. In this the three strings play a generally subservient role making the piece almost a mini-concerto for oboe. Adrian Wilson played his often perilously high-flying part with all the grace and ease that the piece demands. In the slow movement his plangent contribution was beautifully judged and the witty finale was lightly done, especially the throwaway ending.

After the Mozart came the Nielsen Quintet for five winds. This work was inspired by the characters of its original performers and each instrument has its own strong human as well as musical personality to which the group responded vividly. I have to admit to bias here since Carl Nielsen is one of my Desert Island composers and this performance was a treat indeed, the players responding to Nielsen’s quirky and idiomatic writing to the manner born. It’s surely a piece that, if you’re expert enough to play it, and you’d have to be very expert, must be a joy to do. The gently bucolic opening movement, a lively conversation between friends with moments of humorous disagreement, those argumentative sforzandi and aggressive repeated notes so well caught.

The gentle duets of the menuet that followed were tenderly done and the foreboding introduction to the finale, the darker colour of the cor anglais replacing the oboe made an effective foil for the following theme and variations.

The players made the most of their many opportunities to paint musical pictures in this colourful sequence of character studies, provoking even audible laughter in the exchange between Andrew Watson’s imperturbable bassoon and Matthew Hunt’s choleric clarinet (how I’d love to hear him play Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto!).

After the interval came Nonets by Martinu and Spohr, both giving ample opportunities for the string players to show their mettle.

The typical mixture of lyricism and rhythmic invention in the Martinu was well projected and the Spohr, with its Rossinian finale rightly received vociferous applause. Heartfelt thanks to the organizers for this wonderful season.