★★★½☆ HIP skills and an air of camaraderie capture the Schubertiade spirit.

Recital Hall East, Conservatorium of Music, Sydney
May 27, 2016

It’s hard to believe that Ironwood is turning ten this year. The flexible, historically informed performance outfit may be small, but it seems they have brought a world of new sounds and perspectives to the ears of Sydneysider for a decade, and this bite-sized Schubertiade was no exception.

The programme comprised just the two works, opening with the 19-year-old Schubert’s sunny String Trio in B Flat. The young composer’s second stab at the genre got further than his first (which weighs in and just a few bars), but although he began a second movement, he gave it up until the following year when he finally managed a full four-movement effort. Never mind. The single movement of D471 is a warm-hearted musical ramble and received a thoroughly idiomatic reading with plenty of bonhomie and some classy Viennese slides. A Puckish Sascha Bota on viola was the ball in a spirited game of musical tennis between his higher and lower colleagues, Anna McMichael on violin and Daniel Yeadon on cello. Although this tuneful and appealing work is fairly tightly structured,...