And We're Off!

And so it's off to St Peter's, Norton, for the concert launching the 2013 programme. First we have a concert - this year by the Gould Piano Trio - and then this year's Festival Programme is introduced by Artistic Director Chris Glynn, and the physical programmes distributed. For me,  this is where the long run-in to summer really begins. If the launch concert is here, can July be far behind? 

The Gould Piano Trio took us through a programme of Haydn, Arensky, Beethoven and Shostakovich. The Haydn was everything you'd expect: witty, tricky and energetic.  Haydn just won't rest until he's twisted round every unlikely corner. Well, that's what I hear now in the 21^st century – what must they have thought in the 18^th? (Now there's a question: is Haydn more easily heard breaking conventions now or in the 18^th century? Discuss. )

Then came a trio by Anton Arensky. I've not met this Arensky before, but thought his Op 32 Trio sounded like something Vaughan Williams or Howells might have produced after a night with the vodka and bevy of gypsy girls. No stint of melody, shall we say. By happy chance, as the slow movement faded out, the dusk chorus was alive, and produced a particularly fine  blackbird counterpoint. John Cage would have approved (and so would Celibidache).

The second half began with Beethoven's cello/piano variations on a theme out of the Magic Flute – and cellist Alice Neary reminded us she had been part of the opera orchestra for the Festivals Cosi van Tutti some years ago.

But the musical highlight of the evening was surely the Shostakovich Trio #2. Deeply emotional stuff this – harrowing at times too, since this was in part, Shostakovich's musical response to the discovery of the Holocaust atrocities. I loved it, cold and bleak and tragic and wintry as it was . . . it was still the real tabasco. The Trio invited us to view the opening movement as painting a journey through the Soviet Union. This was inspired: those wild keening high notes on the cello conjuring up the dreadful lonely cold, and later the discovery of a chuntering rhythm shunting the music along like, yes, cattle trucks. Difficult to listen to this now and not think of Steve Reich's 'Different Trains.' 

It remains a great mystery how music can explore such pain and yet leave you uplifted and smiling. But there it is.

Finally, it was Artistic Director Chris Glynn's turn to shepherd us through the programme. I'll write enough about the programme later, no doubt. I recommend that you download it from here. But more important on this night was the welcome absence of the St Peter's Spider.

Some of us will remember the moment a few years ago when, as the  Artistic Director began to speak, something of imposing Amazonian appearance got to the red carpet, flexed its eight sinister legs and. . . legged it for the door. (It reminded me of the time a hairy crab got loose on the Shanghai-Hong Kong flight and we all ended up crouched unmanned on our seats as the air hostesses cornered and  eventually captured this tasty but terrifying delicacy.) On this occasion, if I remember correctly, panic was averted when a ram-rod backed man sprang to the rescue, cupped it in his hands and escorted it to the door. 'Seen worse in Malaya', I think I heard. 

So here's a photo of the Gould Piano Trio. Quite possibly they are  expressing their relief that the  St Peters Spider kept away. Or maybe not - I could be mistaken.