St Paul’s Hall in Huddersfield is a great space for a concert, and the Arditti Quartet fill it superbly. The players were meant to be joined by the composer for the third segment of the series, but being ill and in Oslo, Ole-Henrik was not present. His place was taken by a last minute substitute, Graeme Jennings, who had apparently (according to Arditti) been plied with ale prior to being shown the score. Poor lad.

The music comprised three interlinked pieces: Vent, Litt and Lenger. These ran one into the other, and represented a cycle of sorts. Vent started with a huge inhalation - the calm before the storm as the audience quietened and the players prepared - followed by the quietest scraping chords one could imagine. It somehow feels appropriate to describe the music in terms of meteorology: wind blowing over a snowy landscape. Perhaps the arctic conditions in the UK this weekend have influenced my interpretation, but it was definitely bleak. The storm intensified to a wild blizzard and abruptly abated as the piece ended. Litt continued in the same vein, and was sadly marred by a cacophony of coughing from someone sitting behind me. I think I’ll commission a 15 minute coughing performance for next year’s festival. Shame. The final segment, Lenger, contained more rasping and wheezing, thankfully this time not from the audience, but from the quartet augmented by Graeme. Huge breadth of textures in the playing from scraping noise fields, howling waves and delicate tinkling. 45 blissful bleak and snowy minutes. Wonderful stuff.