Issue 10

January 2012

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Virtuoso performances by The Sterling Trio
by Keith Bradshaw


 

 

 I must say, looking before the concert at the combination of instruments involved, I didn’t think I was going to enjoy this recital by The Sterling Trio: Sarah Atter (flute), Thomas Verity (clarinet) and Lauren Hibberd (piano). But I was glad when my fears were not justified, for it turned out to be one of the most relaxed, nicely introduced and skilfully played performances for SASRA Music & Arts in recent years.
This young and very talented group was formed at The Royal Northern College of Music in 2006, and they produced a wide-ranging programme of music from the 16th to the 21stt centuries - mainly arrangements, of course, since original pieces for flute, clarinet and piano are not all that common.
But the transcriptions were so beautifully done and played that you would have thought that J S Bach and Mendelssohn had actually written the G major Trio Sonata and the three Songs Without Words respectively, for the three instruments. The Trio by Madeleine Dring (an unjustly neglected composer and student of Vaughan Williams), in which the clarinet had replaced the oboe, was a finely crafted piece, with a most attractive slow movement. The Opus 2 Trio by Leon Levitch was a revelation. This had actually been written for piano, flute and clarinet and had involved a fair amount of detective work by Tom Verity to obtain the musical score, including a long-distance and a ‘somewhat scratchy’ telephone call to the composer, now 84 and living in California!
The ‘The Grand Fantasia’ by Malcolm Arnold was a real virtuoso performance with a whole succession of different musical styles: Italian Opera, jazz, tango and a waltz. It concluded, almost (The Trio still had the energy to play an encore) an evening that was greatly appreciated by the audience who, I imagine, went home grateful that such high quality musical performances are still being presented in our rather remote part of the country. Perhaps they were already looking forward to the next concert………………………..
People say music and mathematics tend to go together, so regular followers of the SASRA Music & Arts programme may have noticed a numerical connection between the numbers of performers so far in this year’s programme. The first three concerts have involved 8, 24 and 3 performers, so it was inevitable that the next one on 20 January 2012 would involve a further reduction by a factor 3. It will be given by a solo pianist. Sarah Beth Briggs will play the mighty ‘Waldstein’ Sonata by Beethoven and the complete Book 1 of Debussy’s preludes.
On this basis, is it possible to predict how many players will appear in the fifth concert of the series on February 24? The answer is ‘no’. The artists are The Fontanella Recorder Quintet, so there will be five.