SIMON Ravens reviews Florilegium at I

lkley Concert Club.

IT is quite fashionable these days to scoff at the idea of genius.

Great talent, the argument now goes, is produced more by nurture than nature.

At first glance, the programme of Florilegium's tribute to the Bach family would seem flatly to deny that kind of argument.

Here was almost an entire concert of music by one man, his son and nephews.

Surely, only genetics could account for such a musical inheritance.

The concert began with the Trio Sonata from the Musical Offering by the prime begetter of the dynasty, J S Bach.

This was brave programming, Bach's musical ideas sail along at a fairly stratospheric level in this work.

The intensity here is of a fairly esoteric kind, defying easy appreciation and Florilegium's playing was a model of refinement.

If, despite a magnificent recording of the work to their name, it still left the group slightly baffled (as harpsichordist Neil Peres Da Costa told engagingly told us afterwards) they should not worry, the Musical Offering is Bach at his most celestial.

Our arrival back on earth, an often appealing and relatively comprehensive place, was announced by the first bars of J E Bach's Violin Sonata.

Lucy Russel, Florilegium's violinist, has much of the tone and technical

command, but as yet not the

extraordinary musical personality of her predecessor in the group, Rachel Rodger.

It is this extra dimension which this music perhaps needed for it to take off.

The other works in the programme were similarly pleasant and similarly earthbound.

C P E Bach, the most original of all Bach's offspring, came closest to taking wing and drew accomplished, committed playing from the group.

It was not until their Scottish encore, however, when for two gorgeous minutes Florilegium might have been Capercaillie, that the players appeared emotionally uncaged.

Florilegium's humility and infectious enthusiasm could easily undersell them as serious artists, yet they are a deeply receptive and communicative group.

As much as any period instrument ensemble outside of our dreams, they are capable of rising to the greatest

challenges great music can offer.

A pity, then, that the younger members of the Bach family didn't challenge them more.

For all the facility and technique J E,

C P E and company seem to have gleaned from growing up in the Bach household, there is one thing they managed not to acquire from JS - his profound genius.