Huntingdon Hall, Sunday 2 November 2014
Worcester Concert Club can always be relied upon to stage a thoughtful, varied and high-quality series of concerts, and their second concert of the season offered a rare chance to hear a first class ensemble play music for violin, viola and cello.
The repertoire for this combination is not extensive. Haydn, for example, wrote nearly 70 string quartets but only 21 string trios, of which 20 are for two violins and cello, and only one for violin, viola and cello. Schubert wrote only 2 string trios, and it was the D. 471 unfinished one which opened the programme. It was played with silky tone, marvellous precision and an almost uncanny unanimity of feeling by the Pro Musica String Trio.
The second item, Serenade for String Trio by Dohnányi, is an early piece written in 1902, but is a true eye-opener. Contemporary with Bartok, Dohnanyi shows none of Bartok's angularity or stringency, but in this piece he shows true mastery of the three instruments, giving them melody, energy, quiet eloquence and exciting, unusual rhythms. It is a marvellous, brilliantly constructed and highly approachable piece of music and it was played to perfection.
After the interval we heard Mozart's Divertimento K. 563, a masterpiece which string trios must play very often, given its popularity. A long, demanding composition, it was given a fine performance, perhaps not quite as carefully fashioned as the other two pieces, but familiarity must breed, if not contempt, possibly slightly less concentrated intensity.
A most enjoyable and wonderfully played concert.
John Gibson