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Precious is a new-style weepie but one that is much more bracing than depressing
Precious
Theatre
Ian McKellen is captivating throughout. He delights in the play’s gallows humour, yet is also maudlin and poignant
Waiting for Godot
Theatre
Slight quibbles notwithstanding, this will set the West End’s stock riding high
Enron
Utterly, utterly brilliant. You really are in for a treat
Though 'Trilogy' has won rave reviews, I personally found myself exasperated after about an hour
We went on a quiet sunday evening and the food was excellent, but the experience let down by the service and ambiance
London,
Nick Kimberley's rating
Reader rating
Description: The Quartet play Benjamin Dale's Sonata and Schumann's Adagio and Allegro.
Phone: 0845120 7502
Trains: Tube: Mansion House/Bank 
Beethoven wrote his so-called Kreutzer Sonata (he jokingly called it his "sonata mulattica") for the black violin virtuoso George Bridgetower. The sonata's original dedication was to Bridgetower, but after the two fell out over something Bridgetower said about a woman, Beethoven rededicated it to Kreutzer, a French violinist.
Bridgewater is now somewhat forgotten, but this year's City of London Festival pays tribute, not only with Julian Joseph's opera Bridgetower (premiered next Thursday), but also with the Dante Quartet's programme yoking the Kreutzer/Bridgetower Sonata to Dominique- René de Lerma's piano quintet arrangement of Bridgetower's ballad Henry.
Over in a trice, Henry proved slight, strongly melodic and hardly a revelation. Still, it was a peg on which to hang half a concert: the last string quartet by Haydn (who taught Bridgetower), as well as the Beethoven sonata (played by the Dante's Krysia Osostowicz and pianist Simon Crawford-Phillips), with John Sessions reading a few uncredited words about Bridgetower.
If Haydn emerged as po-faced and slightly flaccid, the Beethoven had both muscle and grace. Crawford-Phillips gave the piece a solid rhythmic profile, allowing Osostowicz to show the range of her tone, roughhewn one moment, sweetly lyrical the next.
In the second half, Sessions read from Tolstoy's story The Kreutzer Sonata, at first interspersed with Stravinsky's Three Pieces for String Quartet, then followed by Janacek's String Quartet No1, inspired by Tolstoy. While Sessions rather overplayed Tolstoy, the Dantes got exactly the enigmatic evanescence Stravinsky required. The Janacek was less tortured than some performances, yet the Dantes did not sell the drama short, their reading seeming to feed off Tolstoy's subdued violence.
• City of London Festival runs until July 12 (0845 120 7502).
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
I appreciate Mr. Kimberly's comments on Bridgetower, just as I respect his refreshing consideration of all musical matters. Implicit in his words is the concept that, in order to view the valley, one need not always stand on the mountain top.
- Dominique-René De Lerma, Appleton, Wisconsin, USA
