This was a concert that I had been anticipating for over two years. Frequent readers of this blog will see why should they scroll back to the review of these players’ first appearance in Leicester in 2020. There they will see that the concertgoer was for several reasons extremely enthusiastic about what he had heard.
Some of that enthusiasm arose from the circumstances of the concert, given as it was in the middle of the pandemic. During that period the Music Director and the Board of LIMF had laboured to ensure that through the internet and recordings Leicester was not bereft of music. It was most certainly better than nothing but unavoidably the fare felt at times somewhat limited and lightweight compared to the experience of an hour’s live music in the Museum.
Then along came the gallant Mithras Trio, Ionel Manciu , violin, Leo Popplewell ,cello and Dominic Degavino,piano, prepared to travel to Leicester to play in the Museum to an audience of two from LIMF Board plus a recording unit. The result seemed to me to be quite simply one of the most invigorating concerts that I had heard for a long time despite it being received as a recording rather than live and it was with no surprise that afterwards I learnt that they had been immediately offered when things returned to normal a live concert.
And this was it. It cannot be said that, after re -reading my blog of 2020, I was not keeping my fingers crossed that I had not been over influenced by the circumstances of the time, rather like the gasping traveller in the desert being prepared to drink almost any water offered. However, I need not have worried. Live the trio came across as an ensemble already of the highest quality and it was no surprise that they had appeared with this very same programme at the Wigmore Hall a few weeks previously. Also, they seemed, in these times when sometimes the ticking of boxes can appear rather more important than the satisfying of a reasonably knowledgeable and open-minded audience, on the evidence of this concert able to create a programme which, however little or well known, never for a moment suggested that the music being played was not really worthy of attention.
The first two works played were a first hearing for me which in one case was not exactly surprising since it had been premiered at the Wigmore Hall concert. However, the opening of the concert with Frank Bridge’s Phantasie Trio in C minor written in the first decade of the last century was for me an extraordinary experience. Of course, I had heard of the composer, first of all as the teacher of the young Britten who thought highly enough of him to entitle his first outright masterpiece Variations on a theme of Frank Bridge for string orchestra ,based on a theme taken from one of Bridge’s early pieces. The performance of this work at the Salzburg Festival of 1937 is generally acknowledged as signalling to the world the arrival of a composer of major significance. And yet, I thought to myself, I cannot remember hearing live the music of this man who was such an important influence on a major composer. I can only vaguely recall one or two broadcasts of The Sea and that has been it until now.
Well, better late than never and what an experience it was, a work which seemed brimming with ideas and passion. From the very beginning as played in this performance it positively surged with passion and maintained that urgency to the end with lyrical episodes interposing at times. Perhaps It was difficult always to perceive, at least on a first hearing, quite where the music was going. Clearly also this was a young composer not afraid to cast his net wide. Might one have caught hints of Elgar in places and moments of Faure and Ravel elsewhere? In the end, though, one could but agree with Walter Cobbett, the patron who caused it to be composed, that it was a work of rather wonderful lavishness and suggesting in this age of re-assessment that the composer might warrant much more exposure to the light.
After that it took a little time to adjust to the next much shorter work, Joy Lisney’s Petrichor. There was not a particularly encouraging beginning. A friend sitting next to me in the concert looked at me pityingly as only one elderly academic can when another elderly academic is found wanting, in this case having confessed to never having come across the title or to his knowledge having recognised the particular scent that is exuded when rain falls on dry earth. I rebutted his suggestion that my powers of smell were particularly lacking and suggested that it was merely the fact that he was a country boy and I was a city lad.
Of course, none of this contributed much to a response to the music, though it did awake in me for a moment a recurring irritation concerning the habit of quite a few present day composers feeling a need to describe the thought provoking mysteries that had caused them to write the music, as if those mysteries would necessarily flow into music of similar significance. However, mercifully such an assumption was not made here and the listener was not encouraged to make second by second connections to the title. Also it appeared to me a canny piece of programing in that the music engaged one in a totally different way to the previous work. On first hearing it was felt to be a composition in which every note, every sound was the result of a keen musical intelligence. This listener was beguiled time and again by what seemed the precision and clarity of the writing. If that sounds a cold comment it isn’t meant to be. After the richness of the Bridge, it resembled a cooling drink not unlike perhaps the effect of rain on parched earth.
And then there was Beethoven’s Piano Trio. Opus 70 ‘Ghost’, the composer at his most adventurous, almost to the point of quirkiness. If, as has been suggested, some of this was an over flow from his then current thoughts about converting Macbeth into an opera ,then perhaps it was for the best. Shakespeare reduced to the Gothic fantasies of the composer’s time does not suggest the loss of a masterpiece and it was as well we had to wait for Verdi.
Whatever, these elements sit well in the trio and this superb ensemble brought off time and again to perfection the sudden changes of mood and direction. Also, this was the part of the programme which finally brought the piano part into the limelight and Dominic Degavino revelled in the opportunity to show what a fine artist he is. The museum piano is a magnificent instrument but with some pianists it is not always that obvious. Here it was. It positively danced and glowed at times, as did the encore, a short piece by the Argentinian composer Ginastera .
A fine concert, a judgment that the enthusiastic applause of the audience seemed to endorse.
The Diary of a Leicester Concert-goer 