THE cold weather reduced the British Music Society’s audience to barely a third of its normal size, but the hardy survivors were handsomely rewarded by the Frith Piano Quartet’s luscious programme of Mozart and Schumann framing lesser-known delights by Martinu and Lekeu.

This ensemble is an occasional grouping; its players are regularly occupied elsewhere, two as orchestral principals in Birmingham, one in a string quartet, and pianist Benjamin Frith as a soloist in his own right. But the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

There was plenty of drama in Mozart’s First Piano Quartet in G minor, always a passionate key for the composer. But except in its gentle Andante, style was at a premium. The violinist Robert Heard seemed unwilling to make eye contact with his colleagues. Yet he mellowed later.

The Martinu, energetic in its outer movements, evoked a fine display from Frith, though with the piano lid fully open he forced the strings to drive hard for balance – except in the magical Andante. Here, with the piano largely absent, the elegiac strings were fluently led by Richard Jenkinson’s cello.

Lekeu’s only surviving movement produced a tender solo from Louise Willams’ viola and majestic sweeps in its closing bars. The many moods of Schumann’s only piano quartet were wonderfully controlled: resolute after mystery at the start, frothy in the Scherzo, supremely lyrical in the Andante and thrilling in the finale. Just the warmth we needed.