The Ryedale Festival continued its cultural progress with a super "coffee concert" featuring the youthful Navarra String Quartet.

The concert had a surreal beginning with the beautiful opening strains of Haydn's String Quartet (Op.76, No.6) triggering an unwelcome clunking counterpoint from an ecclesiastical security man.

The parish church was an excellent choice of venue, with the most lovely stained-glass window backdrop and, more importantly, a very supportive acoustic.

It is pretty rare outside of a concert hall environment to hear the string quartet sound so resonant and clear and the Navarra String Quartet took full advantage.

This was particularly true of Simone van der Giesson's viola contributions. Like the rest of the ensemble nothing sounded forced, but you could clearly hear this lovely, rich tone in the poignantly projected 2nd movement and in the superbly performed 3rd movement of the Brahms (Op.51, No.1): very refreshing.

The performance of the Haydn was assured and classy, but the Brahms was arguably better.

Right from the off the instrumental interaction was impeccable, technique assured and the understanding of the music thorough. The first movement coda was really thrilling, the music-making in the 2nd seriously impressive with lovely resonant cello "strumming" and cute violin and cello chats competing with other musical nuggets in the third.

My only criticism would not be the first violin intonation high-register blips in the Haydn 4th movement, but that the performances were a little too measured, too respectful, not taking enough risks: maybe they could do with Lindsaying-up. Just a thought!

Updated: 11:38 Monday, July 25, 2005