First Music Society concert on the Colin Guthrie piano

An eager audience gathered in the Community Theatre at the High School on Saturday October 22nd, keen to hear the new piano, so magically gifted by Colin Guthrie, put through its paces. The Heller Trio, Jean Fletcher, violin, Gareth John, cello and Blair Cargill, piano, laid any doubts to rest. The glossy black Kawai is, Blair said, ‘a wonderfully responsive instrument’, and the evening was one of great pleasure.

Haydn’s Gypsy Rondo, with its inventive variations in the first movement and its melodic lead for the violin in the second, led to the energetic rondo itself, and settled everyone into enjoyment. Beethoven studied with Haydn in Vienna but somehow seems the more ‘modern’ of the two, with an emotional content that communicates very directly with audiences today. His Trio in B flat major began with a bright allegro, then the cello led into the second movement with a beautiful, song-like adagio, joined by the violin. Variations, as in the Haydn, formed the final movement, based on a popular song of the time and still possessed of a quirkiness that the players expressed with great verve.

The big number of the evening was the Mendelssohn Trio in D minor Opus 49. A passionately romantic piece, it also touches on moments of deep sadness, balanced by a light sparkle reminiscent of his well-loved music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In the final movement, its fast, thundering sequences of double octaves showed Blair Cargill’s mastery. Altogether, the evening was a great baptism for the new piano, and a concert that triumphed in its own right.