Contemporary composers can sometimes take themselves just a little too seriously. Not Thomas Larcher, however. His Mumien for cello and piano was played at the opening concert of this year's Oxford Chamber Music Festival. As the piece was about to start, a member of the audience complained that the platform lighting was shining straight into his eyes. After checking with cellist Natalie Clein that she would still be able to read her music, the offending lights were switched off. "Never mind if you can't see," Larcher proclaimed cheerfully, "As it's modern music, nobody will know if you play some wrong notes!"

And modern music it certainly was. "Various objects" (to quote the programme) were inserted into the Steinway grand piano "to create a sound-world of percussive attacks and unusual colours". This involved much leaping up and down by Larcher, and his page-turner, as they manipulated the objects involved - alas, no mirror was fitted inside the piano lid, so you could not see what they were. Percussive effects were certainly obtained, however, in a piece that was full of urgent pulsating rhythms. Altogether Mumien kept me comprehensively hooked throughout its 11 minutes' running time.

Besides Larcher, this year's OCMF also featured Mozart, Schumann, and Shostakovich. Included in this first concert was Shostakovich's Seven Romances on Poems of Alexander Blok, Op. 127. This song cycle highlights Shostakovich's skill at creating a whole range of moods and textures while using only minimal numbers of performers - a fact brought out by quite stunning contributions from soprano Andrea Lauren Brown, and a whole gallery of distinguished instrumental soloists. Occasionally Brown was almost too powerful to mirror the words she was singing, but when she came to giving full vent to The Storm, it was quite amazing to think that only one voice was involved.

The concert was topped and tailed by Mozart. Katharine Gowers, James Boyd, Natalie Clein, and Melvyn Tan opened the proceedings with the Piano Quartet in E flat major (K 493), framing a middle movement properly full of both unease and warmth with a perky Allegro, and a fresh-sounding final Allegretto. Festival artistic director Priya Mitchell (pictured) and violist Maxim Rysanov rounded off the evening with a really rip-roaring performance of the Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola. You really felt that you could see Mozart himself smiling down from above the Sheldonian's temporary ceiling.