Shropshire Music Trust: Florilegium, Lion Hotel, Shrewsbury - review

It was a perfect setting in which to listen to Haydn and Mozart, the eye delighting in the green and subtle pink decor embellished in white Wedgwood leaves and urns, the ear revelling in the elegant and beautifully articulated playing of these fine musicians and the imagination being transported back to a bygone age of periwigs, stylish coats and buckled or beribboned shoes.

The group takes its name from a collection for strings – the Florilegium Suites by Georg Muffat (1653-1704) – and draw in players to meet their musical requirements from quartet to symphony orchestra with a choir.

Florilegium play on period instruments using gut strings, very little vibrato and a wooden flute, producing beautifully soft mellow tones.

They played two London Symphonies by Haydn, arranged for flute quintet by Haydn's musical colleague Johann Salomon. No 94, The Surprise, is so called because Haydn, fearing the audience might fall asleep after a large dinner, wrote a fortissimo chord at the end of a very quiet passage.

The minuet in this conjured up images of German peasants doing a folk dance. No 101, The Clock, has the accompanying instruments imitating a ticking clock in the slow movement.

The pleasure of arrangements like these is that all the parts can be heard separately weaving their magic into the whole texture.

Florilegium also treated us to two wonderful flute quartets by Mozart with the slow movement of the D major quartet having a particularly beautiful melody accompanied by pizzicato strings.

The group is involved in many educational projects here and in Bolivia.

By Ruth Anderson