Vanity, vanity, all is vanity

CLASSICAL MUSIC Janacek / Smetana St John's Smiths Square, London

There can be few more depressing spectacles than witnessing a once great player hobbled. As a teenager in the Sixties, my LPs of Josef Suk performing the Bach Sonatas for harpsichord and violin were worn through. An electrical storm seemed to compete with playing of the utmost serenity, but to this day I treasure the pitted black vinyl.

This great violinist, grandson of the composer Josef Suk, great grandson of Dvorak, former member of a piano trio with Janos Starker and Julius Katchen now finds himself in the company of relatively small fry. In Wednesday's concert at St John's, Smith Square, he was teamed up with the young Czech pianist Buhumila Jedlickova, and the Russian cellist Nina Kotova, sometimes known as "Ninka". Something weird is going on. First we have Vanessa-Mae, a violinist of genuine talent, who doesn't seem to want (or need) to decide whether to be a "classical" pop star or a simpering fashion princess. Now we've got Kotova. With willowy "Ninotchka" looks (apart from the long fingers, looking deeply at odds with the physical attributes normally required for cello playing), Nina Kotova has modelled for Chanel, Largerfeld, Valentino and Ungaro. But now she seems to want to be a cellist. Having heard her perform twice recently - on Wednesday and at the Barbican as soloist in Elgar's Cello Concerto - I realise that something I wouldn't have deemed possible is happening: "vanity" concert promotion. The very idea is, of course, preposterous; looks cannot disguise aural disabilities but Wednesday's concert, an intelligently planned programme of some of the most beautiful and enigmatic music by the Czech composers, Smetana and Janacek, was a far from uplifting affair.

Janacek's piano cycle In the Mists, which began the concert, an affecting fusion of Moravian folk naivete with French Impressionist colour, was heavily delivered by Jedlickova, detail obscured by her over-pedalling and St John's resonant acoustic. Janacek's Pohadka, for cello and piano, is programme music to a Russian fairy tale. It cries out for the flights of fancy of an effervescent imagination. With Kotova, no such luck. Buried in the notes on her music stand, this was not a performance but a careful student reading, technically accurate, musically dead.

It was not difficult for Josef Suk to rescue the evening with a passionately spontaneous performance of Janacek's sonata. His full-blooded tone with aggressive roughness, marvellously underlined the passion and drama of this work, even if textures were muddied by Jedlickova's pedalling.

Smetana's only piano trio is a big work demanding full throttle from all three players. Unfortunately, only one was firing on all cylinders. After Suk's espressivo entry, where was the cello? Kotova came in like a mouse, no volume, no intensity, and no apparent understanding of the nature of chamber music, where the occasional glance in the direction of fellow players is a good idea. Suk so often offered a lead only to have his musical insights dashed on the rocks of others' musical insensitivity.

If this is vanity concert promotion, beware!