Only connect
Audience engagement depends on the electricity generated by the music taking the shortest possible route from performers to listener . Just as E. M. Forster explained how "Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted", so, only connect the music and the passion, and both will be exalted. As in the new CD from the Orchestra of St Paul's conducted by its artistic director Ben Palmer seen above. The headline work on the disc is the relatively familiar String Quartet of Edward Elgar in an unfamiliar but engaging arrangement for strings by David Matthews. Coupled with it is the masterly but predictably neglected Second String Quartet of Malcolm Arnold arranged as a Sonata for Strings by David Matthews , and Robert Simpson 's own arrangement of the searing Allegro Deciso from his Third String Quartet. This is fiendishly difficult music for a quartet, yet alone a sixteen-strong string ensemble. But the Orchestra of St Paul's advocate it with