Shirley Turner, Peter Mallinson, & Lynn Arnold at Chichester

Shirley Turner, Peter Mallinson, & Lynn Arnold, Chichester Cathedral, Jan 14

At a concert in the Autumn I heard tell of how long Chichester's lunchtime concerts had been going or, rather, didn't because the answer seems to be 'as long as anybody can remember'. Thus, continuing the long and great tradition, a new year began with Mozart. Ah, vous dirai-je, maman! is variations on a well-known nursery rhyme with Lynn Arnold twinkling like a little star on the Chichester Yamaha, the strings in sympathy before violin, viola, them both in duet are playful as puppies, the shifts of mood like a mini encyclopedia of Mozart.

Few composers cover quite the range that Shostakovich does and I've been gratified to hear a bit more of his music locally in the last couple of years. The Five Pieces find him in quite a different temper from the vast symphonies and bleakly inventive chamber music. These miniatures move from the longing or nostalgia of the Prelude, through a happy Gavotte, the Palm Court elegance of the Elegy and Waltz before the quicksilver fun of the Polka, with Shirley Turner and Peter Mallinson deft and hugely enjoyable on a day off from the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

While this programme was for the most part composers in lighter moods, John Alexander's soft rains, based on the poetry of Sara Teasdale was ethereal if not other worldly. The stillness and timelessness of There will come soft rains led to Barter, not dissimilarly haunted, possibly by loss, and the leaves in Leaves were surely the last vestiges of them in November with Peter's eloquent viola line. I'm not always easily convinced that words naturally lead to music and I'm a little bit apologetic that, with poetry as my 'day job', I'm not familiar with Sara Teasdale's so I'll work backwards and check out if the music conjures the poems.

But we were soon re-awakened from such deep contemplation by Czardas. Many will know it when they hear it without knowing, like I didn't, that it was written by Vittorio Monti, an unlikely Neapolitan name for such mitteleuropean folk dance. Shirley relished the opportunity to imitate the mandolin and played the longest trill I've ever heard anywhere as the piece built with repressed energy into its frenetic dash, the exuberant interplay of vln and vla, notwithstanding the pizzicato, over Lynn's busy engine room.

Wow. As Dana might have said, it was always going to be a cold, cold Christmas without Chichester Tuesday lunchtimes. One has almost forgotten the thrill they regularly provide but they return just in time. And as Petula would have understood, I...couldn't live without their love. It's never less than wonderful and maybe there's nobody left who can remember when it wasn't.