Carion Wind Quintet balances serious virtuosity and entertainment

After an overload of orchestral and piano concerts, it was refreshing to encounter wind music change

- Chang Tou Liang

The Copenhagen-based Carion Wind Quintet presented a programme striking a fine balance between serious virtuosity and unalloyed entertainment.

This ensemble, whose players come from Denmark, Latvia and Sweden, was undoubtedly the finest wind group to have played here in recent memory.

The quintet helms the Ong Teng Cheong professorship at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory.

The entire concert was performed standing, with most of its first half without scores. With freedom of mobility and placements, that translated into neatly choreographed movements in the opening works.

Twentieth-century Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti's Six Bagatelles was the perfect showcase of slick delivery, from pin-point articulation to resounding clarity.

These movements, from the composer's transcription of Musica Ricercata originally for piano, play on a fixed number of tones in the most creative manner possible.