{TABLE} Quartet in G minor ........... Debussy Ariettes oubliees ............ Debussy Piano Quintet ................ Franck {/TABLE} THE very special nature of the new West Cork Chamber Music Festival is not at all obvious from the programme listing given above. As artistic director Christopher Marwood explains in the festival programme book, part of the idea is to feature "artistic collaborations which simply could not happen on such a scale in normal circumstances".
So, at last night's opening concert, Debussy's early (and only) String Quartet was played by the RTE Vanbrugh Quartet (of which Marwood is the cellist); the French soprano and piano duo of Veronique Dietschy and Philippe Cassard appeared for the even earlier Verlaine settings of the "Ariettes oubliees"; and Cassard returned after the interval for Franck's F minor Piano Quintet. But such is the luxury of the arrangements in Bantry, that in this great landmark of late 19th century French chamber music, Cassard was joined by the festival's second string quartet in residence, the Parisii Quartet.
Bantry House is a very special setting for chamber music (listeners lucky enough to have an exterior view can feast their eyes as well as their ears) and it retains the feeling of being a large house rather than an undersized castle.
The Vanbrugh's playing of Debussy worked with sweet naturalness within the scale of the venue. In the first two movements, in particular, the music's harmonic adventures glowed as if freshly discovered, and created, for this listener, a richer exoticism than was to materialise in the Franck of the second half.
Franck's quintet is less a solid edifice than a creation worked out of shifting sands. The approach of the Parisiis however, was more inclined to deterministic fixity than to the finely graded fluidity which brings the best out of the composer's rolling chromaticism.
Philippe Cassard provided manful support in the Franck, but was in altogether finer form in the Debussy songs, where Dietschy's combination of musical insight and vocal frailty made for an edgily balanced performance.
