The first concert of the Norfolk and Norwich Music Club's new season at the John Innes Centre, Colney, saw a welcome return of the Angell Piano Trio with a programme of works by Beethoven, Schubert and Anthony Payne.
By FRANK CLIFF
The first concert of the Norfolk and Norwich Music Club's new season at the John Innes Centre, Colney, saw a welcome return of the Angell Piano Trio with a programme of works by Beethoven, Schubert and Anthony Payne.
Always an ensemble of great musical integrity, the Angells seem to increase in artistic stature each time one hears them.
A beautifully balanced reading of Beethoven's “Ghost” trio demonstrated all that is best in their playing; superb technique, impeccable musicianship combined with a palpable tension which gives an immediacy to their performance.
Anthony Payne is justly celebrated at present for his completion of Elgar's Third Symphony from the composer's sketches. Introducing his own piano trio at Saturday's recital, Payne described its composition as a necessary antidote to being totally subsumed in the persona of Elgar.
Not surprisingly then the trio is the antithesis of a work on the grand scale. Some 15 minutes of music, its imaginative scoring creating an intimate dialogue between the three instruments; its three sections forming a satisfying arch-like structure. The Angell Trio did it justice with an immaculately polished performance.
To end, a fine reading of Schubert's B-flat trio, the performers revelling in the composer's endless melodic invention, each slight rubato perfectly calculated yet without the slightest hint of self-indulgence.
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