Haydn Society of Great Britain director Denis McCaldin writes:

“Joseph Haydn – Innovation and Inspiration” was the theme of this year’s annual Chamber Music Festival (15-17 March) at the Royal Northern College of Music last weekend in Manchester.

The Chamber Music Festival was pioneered for string quartet players by Christopher Rowland at a time when music colleges gave scant attention to small ensembles. This year’s programme showed how far things have progressed. Devised by RNCM staff member Jeremy Young, the weekend offered student groups from piano duettists to mixed electronic/traditional music in an amazing diversity of chamber ensembles and arrangements. Also featured were the Quatuor Mosaiques and the Heath Quartet in two evening concerts which were as educational as they were impressive. A rewarding weekend for all who attended.

UPDATE: The event was reviewed in the Sunday Times here. Denis McCaldin’s notes were quotes thus:

Denis McCaldin, in his programme-book essay, nicely observed that [Haydn] isn’t so much the “father” of the symphony or the piano sonata as “the ‘father’ of classical music itself”.