The Huntington Estate Music Festival is always an experience. The concerts are held in the Huntington Estate barrel shed, with rows of wine-filled oak barrels behind the players, while meals, which are served in the garden, are all part of the price and the event.

The programme for the opening weekend of this year’s Festival contained at least five undoubted masterpieces – the three Op. 59 quartets of Beethoven (known as the Razumovsky Quartets), the Chaconne for solo violin by Bach, and that outburst of youthful genius, the Octet for Strings by Mendelssohn.

The Quartets Op. 59 Nos 2 and 3 were played by the Goldner String Quartet, which has played many times in Huntington. Op. 59 No 1, the longest in the series, was played by the visiting Danish String Quartet, which performs more frequently in the US than anywhere else. Both groups played these works in the same, forceful, modern manner – brisk tempi, forceful dynamics, opulent tone. This was real virtuoso playing and, despite this extrovert approach, the players never allowed their tone to coarsen. Indeed, the Danish group was remarkable in the slow movement of Op. 59 No 1 for the unanimity and smoothness of its legato...