It was not explained exactly why Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet reunited to perform ‘songs from the last century’ alongside new pieces at the Barbican last night, but I’m awfully glad they did.

The chamber-pop quintet started with a new arrangement of Costello’s hit ‘Accidents Will Happen’, much to the audience’s delight, and it served to set the high standard and musical tone for the rest of the set. The performance was neither trashy G4/El Divo crossover nor highbrow classical concert, just good eclectic music with well judged humour throughout. Costello quoted from Tom Jones and Bobby Darin songs between numbers and joked that having been born in the same hospital where Penicillin was discovered he regrets he ‘hasn’t been as great a boon to mankind.’ I’m sure some of the more fanatical members of the audience would have contested that statement as he performed vocal gymnastics for the length of the set and sounded note-perfect throughout.

Highlight’s of the first half included ‘Rocking Horse Road’, where the Brodsky Quartet tapped their bows against their fingerboards for a nice flighty feel and Costello broke into ‘Wild Thing’ momentarily. ‘Almost Had a Weakness’ featured manic Hitchcock style ‘Psycho’ strings representing the madness of a virgin spinster while Costello very deliberately delivered a dry lyric despite some challenging phrasing and undulating lively rhythms.

Tellingly, despite such highlights, it was ‘Accidents Will Happen’ that I heard people whistling while they widdled during the interval. Tonight’s set was comprised mostly of pieces from the kind-of-concept album inspired by the real-life letters people have sent to Shakespeare’s eponymous heroine, ‘Letters for Juliet’. That album is over 15 years old now and sadly, whenever new arrangements by either Costello or Cassidy were played the quality of the show took a dip. ‘Raglan Road’, ‘My Three Sons’ and a hastily arranged ‘Sulphur to Sugarcane’ from Costello’s forthcoming album all fell a bit flat. A couple more pints and I’m sad to say maybe I would’ve been shouting for ‘Oliver's Army’. When an audience member did shout for ‘one we know’, Costello coolly replied ‘...I’d like to play you a new song now…’ and went into a self accompanied performance of new song ‘One Bell Ringing’.

This perhaps betrayed the fact that the collaboration is an unequal partnership; Costello sometimes seemed like a conductor and was clearly the main draw for the majority of the audience, the world renowned Brodsky Quartet just a side Attraction. The Quartet seemed more restrained than I know they can be from their collaborations with Bjork et al. Given a little freedom they opened up old hits like ‘Pills and Soap’ and provided counter-melodies, variations on vocal themes and freewheeling expansive crescendos that showed just why they are world renowned. The highlight of the second half of the set for me was the unstable, woozy waltz they constructed for ‘Romeo’s Séance’ that was given an extra sense of instability in performance that a recording cannot match. 
            A change in mood was felt towards the end of the set with the demanding combination of ‘I Thought I’d Write to Juliet’, ‘Bedlam’, and ‘Shipbuilding’, dealing as they do with the themes of the first Gulf war and the Falklands conflict respectively. Perhaps this was why the material has been revisited, the sentiments and in some cases details behind these songs all too relevant today as Costello lamented. Grouped together like this made the atmosphere a bit too sombre I thought, but for the Post Script the less austere ‘P.S. I Love You’ (not the Beatles’) and ‘Jacksons, Monk and Rowe’ lifted the mood. The show left me looking forward to looking both collaborators’ back catalogues up, but less enthused about their new input perhaps. Quite a show though.

The Barbican’s contemporary music continues at LSO St Luke’s with ‘Beijing Now!’ See www.barbican.org.uk or call 0844 848 8436 for more details.