Rainer Küchl is probably better known as one of the Concertmasters of the Vienna Philharmonic. He is also a teacher, leads an eponymous string quartet, and is a concerto soloist and recital-giver. In short, he is a cultured player who mixes in the best of musical circles. Küchl’s professorial side was in evidence during this evening; his readings were conscientious if studied.

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As early as halfway through Beethoven’s first movement, Küchl suggested he had exhausted his expressional and tonal resources. So it proved. While his playing was ’good’, something like Vieuxtemps’s long-winded (or so it seemed) Fantasie needs more than merely playing it. Some of it sounded sight-read, which was certainly true of the Wieniawski – too fast, clipped, and both players struggled.

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Hiroshi Kato is ’good’ too. Attentive and accommodating, and generally secure, there was little evidence of a true interrelationship between the two musicians; Kato played dutifully. Such limitations undermined the duo aspects of the two sonatas; it’s worth noting that Beethoven designated his for piano with violin obbligato.

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As the recital wore on, the music seemed cross-referenced. The particular ingredients that could have made each piece more individual were missing from the mix. Jean Françaix’s Stravinsky-fied insouciant sonata was heavy-handed and too strict. Zemlinsky’s Serenade in A major (sic) was more the Suite that the Wigmore brochure promised. But then the programme note was inadequate; £2 was asked for this bit of folded card! Once past the ear-catching, village-fiddling of the first movement, the Suite (or Serenade) fell flat; the five or six movements that followed – the programme failed to list them – were really quite undistinguished.

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Questions were being asked. What has happened to the typically sweet-sounding and lyrical Viennese style of violin playing? Küchl’s over-stressed accents and hard, penetrating E string gave an imbalance across the instrument’s range. Somebody was heard to say that Küchl was “going down the Vengerov road”. This was no compliment! A potentially rapturous moment in Brahms’s slow movement was thrown away as if not there.

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