A short live-streamed chamber concert from members of The London Symphony Orchestra was the order of the day, and taking their places on the 'stage' at the orchestra's second 'home', St Luke's Church, were Will Melvin (violin), Julie O'Riordan (viola), and Laure De Dantec (cello), forming a string trio for the two pieces they were to perform.
The first was a very short piece, and just the first movement (Cantus) from the suite, 'The King's Alchemist' by contemporary composer Sally Beamish. The piece is in four movements all of which take the same Fench folk song as its base, and the music is inspired by the alchemist to King James IV, John Damien, who was, by all accounts, quite an eccentric character.
The opening movement is a short but beautifully evocative and atmospheric evocation to the morning mist slowly lifting as the temperature rises, revealing a hitherto concealed castle as it does. There is definitely a hint of 'Scottishness' to the music despite its French origins, and was very filmic in quality.
I now want to listen to the whole suite.
Following this was Beethoven's String Trio No 3 (opus 9) in C min. Composed by a very young Beethoven, whilst still 'in-training' as the modern terminology goes. Not wanting to step on his masters' toes and follow in the usual path of writing string quartets, he decided to take the trio instead, and more or less reinvent the form. Instead of a light-hearted inconsequential piece of what might now be described as 'elevator music', he put all his skill, emotion and indeed innovation and forward-thinking into the compositions to make pieces which have stood the test of time, and when listening you can clearly hear the stirrings of the genius that was to come.
Starting with a dark and brooding opening in the first movement (allegro con spirito), it moves quickly into an inventive dance before a slow and expressive quasi-lament in the second movement. This is followed by the tradition scherzo, which is all too soon turned on its head by the clever and inventive finale, which ends, not with crashing octave chords fortissimo (those ideas were yet to come), but instead with a delightful and almost unobtrusive perfect cadence, light, clean and crisp, mezzo forte.
Played intelligently with clear skill, the three worked excellently as a unit despite the social distancing making it more difficult to hear and work from and off each other.
Hugely enjoyable.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 27/11/20
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