Musical soirées in private houses are back in fashion

Do the words "classical music" conjure up something like this: a clinical, modern concert hall, stiff-looking musicians in penguin suits, a self-regarding "maestro" (invariably male), audience self-consciousness so extreme that it must be relieved by periodic bouts of compulsive coughing, an angry-looking anorak turning round and glaring at you when you shift a centimetre in your seat?

Classical music (and the word classical, not used by composers such as Mozart, Beethoven or Mahler, and suggesting a dead perfection, does not help) has surrounded itself with an aura and set of rituals of extreme formality. You may be able to live with these (I must say I can); you may even find them eccentric and charming; but one thing is for sure: much of the music you will be listening to was conceived for very different circumstances.

Modern concert halls may be suitable for large-scale symphonic and secular choral works, though even then it is remarkable how few of the modern halls manage to achieve the acoustic warmth and "glow" of great 19th-century auditoria such as the Musikverein in Vienna or the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. But they are in no way natural venues for, say, piano recitals of 18th- and early 19th-century music, or for that wonderfully rich repertoire which goes under the name "chamber music". To be sure, Frédéric Chopin did give his last ever recital, as part of a Grand Dress and Fancy Ball in aid of Polish refugees, in the quite large and grand Guildhall in London in November 1848; I often pass the blue plaque, below, that commemorates this event, and imagine the already frail, consumptive composer gathering himself for a heroic final effort; but this was very much the exception, not the rule. Chopin's intensely refined style of playing, contemporaries said, was better suited to private gatherings.

A generation before Chopin, most performances of Franz Schubert's works took place in private houses. These were the famous "Schubertiades": occasions when Schubert and his friends, some professional musicians and other gifted amateurs, gathered to perform Lieder, chamber music and piano duets (that especially intimate form of music-making which involves close physical proximity, the crossing of hands and sexual frisson). Some of the intimacy of these occasions was determined by politics: the oppressive police state under Metternich with its ubiquitous informers forced radicals such as Schubert and his coterie underground. But there were gains as well as losses.

This positive message is being taken to heart in a number of contemporary European cities and small-scale festivals. In recent months I've attended memorable concerts in private houses in London and Vienna, with music of the highest order and a quality and warmth of experience far removed from the awkward stiffness that often passes for musical appreciation in the bigger halls.

The composer, conductor and violinist Christoph Ehrenfellner organises, with his wife Franziska, monthly "Salons" at their house in Klosterneuburg just outside Vienna. Their cosy upstairs room, below, has space for 80, and the atmosphere is distinctly familial with their two-year-old daughter Elsa and an eccentric Russian blue cat recently renamed Putin making occasional appearances (Putin likes to curl up on the piano).

But there is nothing homely about the music: Mozart's G minor quintet and Brahms's F major communicated their respective anguish and sunny exuberance in terrific performances when Ehrenfellner was joined by fellow violinist Emmanuel Tjeknavorian, violists Firmian Lermer and Elen Guloyan and principal cellist of the Vienna Philharmonic Franz Bartolomey.

The renowned London-based Dante quartet performs occasionally at the house of well-known British judge Jonathan Sumption: being so close to the musicians, sitting on the stairs above the modest-sized music room, made me hear one of Mozart's familiar Prussian quartets in an entirely different way, as if overhearing a conversation rather than being addressed at a public gathering.

Two other distinguished London-based patrons of the arts, former banker Bob Boas and international chairman of Accenture Sir Vernon Ellis, both hold series of concerts in their beautiful London drawing-rooms, featuring the brightest and best of Britain's younger musicians. Anyone can attend, paying a fee which covers dinner and drinks; contributions to the charitable musical trusts Boas and Ellis run are optional.