★★

The Herschel String Quartet got off to a patchy start with two recurring problems – tuning and timing.

Both were exacerbated at the outset.

Firstly they didn’t tune up (in front of us anyway) and secondly, when the cellist announced that despite an order change the audience would still be allowed to clap between the Mendelssohn and the Mozart pieces, I would never have dreamt we wouldn’t want to.

The second movement of the Mendelssohn Op 81 proved the most successful despite the quartet leaving one another behind at the beginning and the odd squeak. They settled into a satisfactory rhythm with some crisp playing and jolly plucked notes thrown in. Yet the intonation was woeful at points, which was either a tuning problem or just flat playing.

Once they’d got a few bars under their belts, the Mozart (k.465) took off, with only the odd stringy squeak and the cellist playing beautiful solo lines. Light and frothy playing was punctuated by the odd jarring wrong note.

They rallied for the last section, playing their hearts and strings out, and, having landed on the last note at the same time, strode off with bows aloft. This pleasing ending was not quite enough to redeem a disappointing concert, however.