Three masterpieces (all octets, as it happens) add zest to Sunday lunchtime. Stravinsky stands between his idols. His classical inheritance lurks just below the surface of his witty, punchy music. The music by Haydn and Mozart shows two completely contrasting faces of the key of E flat major: upbeat and spry for Haydn, mellow and more than a little operatic for Mozart.
A finale with a spring in its step: a double portrait of Mendelssohn. His Octet appears every few years at East Neuk Festival and is always welcome. To complement it, Llŷr Williams has created a sequence of Mendelssohn’s keyboard music, including Songs without words and also a prelude and fugue written – as so much of his music was – in homage to the great Johann Sebastian Bach.