MUSIC / Lyric Quartet - St John's Smith Square

'I 'm glad I'm not playing it myself,' said the composer from the platform, 'because it's bloody hard.' Not so hard on listeners: Barrington Pheloung's Quartet No 6 shares his Australian plain speaking. While the music may be tonal, it is not simplistic. The lean harmonic language supports resourcefully varied textures, evolving from the obsessive discussion of a scrap of melody into more intense polyphony, and from a racy Glass-meets-Janacek scherzo through some subtle rhythmic games towards a central decorated chorale.

From here the music slips rather easily back over previous ground, as though in a hurry to be finished. Still, it reinforced reports of the group's high quality, as did a neat, laconic performance of the Seventh Quartet of Shostakovich.

Schubert's 'Death and the Maiden' Quartet tested the playing more thoroughly and found it at times impetuous and rough, latching on to the music's urgency as though this were already the Mahler arrangement. But there was plenty of flair and imagination, spiced by gypsy-like panache from the first violinist.