This concert by the brilliant Elysian Quartet was the first evening event in this innovative Spring Festival.

Max De Wardener’s two movements from the Bee Trilogy were attractive minimalist essays, neatly dispatched, though without leaving a lasting impression. Far stronger was Keith Tippett’s String Quartet. The opening crisp staccato exchanges were a delight and the subsequent block structuring had echoes of the great Sir Michael himself. Although the improvisation sections derailed momentum, they were invariably engaging in themselves.

The second and third movements were nowhere near as strong, although what did come across was the strength and quality of the four performers, they enjoyed their own space and interacted instinctively. MacMillan’s touching Memento was a series of wispy atmospheric snapshots of Gaelic lament music; the playing was simply exemplary. Gabriel Prokofiev’s String Quartet No.1 improved as it progressed, and it needed to. The opening movement was pretty ordinary, the second was at least rhythmically engaging.

By the fourth movement, however, I suspect that the writing was closer to the composer’s instinctive dance style, it came alive anyway.

Performers who take risks, as the Elysian Quartet palpably do, are, in sporting parlance, susceptible to occasional poor shot selection, and Meredith Monk’s lightweight Stringsongs was testament to this.

The fourth movement had an infectious minimalist momentum, but not even the outstanding musicianship of these players could raise the rest of this music beyond the seriously mediocre.