With violinists Clair Stanley and Claire Turk, viola player Sally Minchin and cellist Sarah Huson, the Highly Strung String Quartet played Christmas songs and carols as well as some other carefully chosen pieces when they appeared in Lichfield.
Their set ranged from classical interpretations to swing jazz versions of festive numbers, as well as interesting settings for pop songs from the 1980s and 1990s and some selected film score music.
They started with a swinging Sleigh Ride by Leroy Anderson, before a series of Christmas carols were played, pushing the cello to the front during In The Bleak Midwinter allowed for the more mournful sound of the instrument to be heard to best effect.
As Shane McGowan had recently died, the quartet’s reading of perhaps his best known song, Fairytale of New York, was particularly poignant, while Shakin’ Stevens’ Merry Christmas Everyone was recast as an almost appalachian bluegrass stomp.
The quartet packed a lot into the concert – and it was interesting to be reminded that although these songs are now overly familiar, they can still stand up as music when played in a different way.
