The last of the four concerts which formed this weekend-long festival was a beautiful piece of synergistic programming. First we got Schumann’s Piano Quartet op 47 written in 1844 when the composer was 34. Then came Piano Quintet op 34 by Brahms first aired in 1865 when its composer was 32. Of course the two men knew each other well. Schumann championed the young Brahms and, famously, Brahms’s fondness for Clara Schumann lasted for the rest of his life.

And yet, separated by only 21 years these two works are very different and the group of top flight musicians led by Benjamin Grosvenor at Bromley Parish Church made sure that we noticed every nuance.

The Schumann was played by Grosvenor with Hyeyoon Park (violin). Timothy Ridout (viola) and Bartholomew LaFollete (cello). So attuned to each other are they that it felt like eavesdropping on a conversation – there is something very personal about chamber music played well. I admired the warm intensity they brought to the opening movement, the precise delivery of the scampering semiquavers in the scherzo and the majesty of the fugue in the finale. The highlight though, as usual with this work, was the sublime lilting 3|4 melody of the andante which these four played with gentle passion.

A different line up for the Brahms meant that Grosvenor and Park were joined by Raja Halder (who directed this delightful festival) playing second violin and Laura van de Heijden on cello. It was a fine rendering of this rather sombre work with lots of F minor melancholy delivered with plenty of dramatic tension in the first movement. In his introduction Grosvenor mentioned that the andante is clearly influenced by Schubert and yes, this quintet leaned on the rueful Schubertian insouciance before settling into Brahmsian richness. There was some especially lovely cello work from van der Heijden. And so to the portentous and then frenzied scherrzo played with all the right energy and stamina before the soulful finale opening. It was the contrasts they handled so well – taking this movement through its dance melody section to the well articulated anger at the end.

One of the remarkable things about this feisty festival is that, although these players clearly know each other very well they don’t work together regularly as a quartet or quintet – and yet the results were stunning. Lucky Bromley and Beckenham. I’m looking forward to next year already.

Susan Elkin

Bromley and Beckenham International Music Festival (BBIMF) was co-founded last year by pianist Benjamin Grosvenor, who comes from Bromley and violinist Raja Halder. This concert was the second in a series of four over the festival’s single weekend – and a thing of wonder it was too happening as it did at 4.30 on Saturday afternoon, an oasis of culture and calm a few yards from the busy high street with its shops and pubs.

It’s a treat to see Grosvenor, who famously won Young Musician of the Year aged 11 and is still only 26, on his home turf and doing the chamber music he is so committed to. I last saw him 11 days earlier playing Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto at the Proms.

We began with Britten’s Lachrymae op 48a which is based on Dowland’s song “If my complaints could passions move”. Premiered at Aldburgh in 1950 and scored for viola and piano, it was new to me as it was, I suspect, to most of the audience. It is actually a theme and variations but Britten reverses the usual order and doesn’t let us hear the plain theme until the end. At this performance a group of four musicians, almost out of sight near the high altar played the soulful, hymn-like Dowland so that we could hear it first. Then it was down to Timothy Ridout and Benjamin Grosvenor to make it sing in the fabulously resonant acoustic of Bromley Parish Church. The effects were surreal and otherworldly especially in the third variation with pizzicato pinging out over wide chords on the piano and I loved the end with Ridout sending the harmonics off into the lofty blue domed roof like stars dying away in the distance.

The second work was the much more familiar Schubert Trio in E flat major in which Grosvenor was joined by violinist Hyeyoon Park (his regular duet partner) and cellist Bartholomew LaFollette. It was supremely well played with warmth and drama in the interwoven melodies of the opening movement. I liked the elegance they brought to the andante as the tune is passed round before those entrancing octave leaps and there was lots of light and dark in the Scherzo. Then they played the Allegro Moderato with delicious charm especially in the witty rotating solo. There was absolutely no blurring of sound in this performance. You could hear every note of every part because speeds were judged to accommodate the loftiness of the space.

I was delighted to see several children at this concert and also noted with approval that the vicar, James Harratt is clearly pleased to have this remarkable festival in his church. He personally welcomed people in at the door, ticking our names off his list and spoke enthusiastically to the audience at the beginning. Too often, when there are concerts in churches, the priest-in-charge, vicar or rector is nowhere to be seen.

Susan Elkin

In many ways this was the concert I’ve been yearning for. For eighteen long months I have hankered wistfully to be in a concert hall, packed to capacity with a large orchestra including double brass, sax, contrabassoon, tuba and lots of percussion. This one ticked all those boxes with two handed piano and the massive Royal Albert Hall organ thrown in for good measure.

It was very neatly linked programming too with Unsuk Chin’s homage to Beethoven subito con forza leading to Beethoven’s fourth piano concerto which used the Saint-Saens cadenzas as a pathway to the latter’s third symphony. Joined-up thinking was the order of the day.

Chin’s piece, commissioned for last year’s Beethoven celebrations but, perforce, not heard in the UK until now, is full of Beethovenian chords, cadences, rhythms and snatches of melody offered and then snatched away by a battery of percussion. It’s good fun, very ingenious and Elder ensured that we heard and enjoyed every strand.

It’s always a treat to hear Benjamin Grosvenor play Beethoven and an especial pleasure to hear the beautiful fourth which doesn’t get quite as many outings as the third and fifth. I liked the emphasis on the filigree texture in the first movement and the Elder’s cheerful focus on every orchestral interjection. Sir Mark smiles a lot from which I infer that he really is having as good a time as the audience is. In what was, a warm, friendly but unshowy performance there was gentle passion in the melodious adante with a moving segue into the last movement.

The Saint-Saens cadenzas were interesting but far too heavy and “Romantic” for what is, in essence a classical concerto, notwithstanding its unusual opening. I’m glad I heard them, and understand exactly why they fitted this context, but I certainly wouldn’t want them as my go-to version of this concerto,

And so to Saint-Saens in all his glory. The performance of the 1886 third symphony Organ was magnificent from its quavery first movement (I can’t be the first person to detect a nod to Schubert 8 in there?) to the marvel of Anna Lapwood, making her Proms debut seated at the organ a very long way from Elder at the front of the distanced Halle orchestra - whose pizzicato work, by the way, is exceptionally effective. Lapwood brought tender lyricism to the lovely melody in the poco adagio and then all the dramatic grandiloquence that the last movement requires. “Excitement” is an overused word but it really was extraordinarily exciting – almost awe-inspiring - to hear the Royal Albert Hall resonating to that huge sound as the final chords blasted over the timpani. If I were several decades younger I might say “wow!” and capitalise it.

Susan Elkin

This neat double bill sets a pared down version of Gluck’s 1762 three act opera alongside Mascagni’s 40 minute Zanetto (1896) and it makes a pleasingly accessible evening of opera, running less than two hours in total. Surtitles clarify the storytelling so that we can enjoy the musicality of the original Italian.

It’s an almost all female project too with an on stage band comprising Lesley-Anne Sammons directing the music from keyboard with Lucy Mulgan on guitar and double bass. The cast – three for Gluck and two for Mascagni – is all women too.

And that brings me to the glorious alto performance from Emma Roberts as Orfeo and then – a very different role – as the travelling musician, Zanetto. Roberts can really act convincingly which is vital in this bijoux performance in an intimately small space. And she is adept at carving out resonant low notes and making them speak poignantly. It isn’t easy to deliver a pot boiler like Che faro senza Euridice and carry it off as if it’s fresh because nearly everyone in the room has vivid sound memories of Kathleen Ferrier and Janet Baker. Roberts, however, does a fine job, packed with anguish as she mourns over the body of the now finally lost Euridice (Lizzie Holmes) and I was moved by her poignant ornamentation on the final repeat. In Orfeo ed Euridice, at the performance I saw, Katie Blackwell, standing in at short notice gave us a silver-voiced, cheeky, smiling Amore.

Lizzie Holmes comes into her own as Silvia in Zanetto. It is, of course, a very different musical world from Gluck and she gives us a lonely but very worldly “hostess” who finds herself drawn to the young musician who asks her for help. She is troubled by her own mixed feelings and her soprano singing usually supports that strongly. There’s some sensitive duet work with the Roberts as the insouciant Zanetto too.

Several things strike me about this enjoyable project. First, it’s a good showcase for the versatility of young singers because the roles they play in the two works are quite different. Second, I’m all in favour of chamber opera companies working in small spaces on low budgets because it makes opera available and affordable for people who simply can’t afford Royal Opera House, ENO or Glyndebourne. Third the two musicians wear white rather than black which makes a cheerfully fresh statement. Why should such talented people try to efface themselves in black?

Susan Elkin