THERE are many ways to conclude a festival.

Having your floor submerged under several inches of water, as happened before the Cottier Chamber Project's final concert during Friday's monsoon, is a strikingly novel, if wetly-climactic, way of rounding things off, though it was well mopped-up by the time the audience arrived.

Last year, host group Daniel's Beard brought things to a roaring conclusion with the music of Dohnanyi. This year they took a different tack, concluding the three-week festival with a performance of Schubert's Octet, a comprehensive, multi-movement masterpiece, running at an hour, but a masterpiece that speaks intimately rather than through rhetorical or dramatic pronouncement.

And, in a somewhat less than totally polished performance, it came across as rather less than the sum of its parts. Schubert's Octet tends to be seen as a sort of sibling to Beethoven's Septet. But where the Beethoven, despite the composer's deep self-doubt about the piece, brims with energy and impulsiveness, Schubert's Octet is a more serene animal, exquisitely polished and graceful at all levels of its composition. Fine; but that grace, poise and refinement need to be reflected in the performance.

And Friday's performance by the string and wind players of Daniel's Beard, though it included many fine representations of elements in the Octet, not least the detail and character of the great Variations movement, failed to reflect the veneer and sheen of the supremely-refined surface of the music.

Anyway, we need to tease: so, following a hugely successful Year Two, with big names, big groups and big stars, what does the Cottier Chamber Project promise for next year? Watch this space.

HHH