No Borders Trio

Usher Hall 22/9/25

Frances Patterson violin, Suzanne Godet viola, Joanna Stark, cello

Introducing today’s concert, Frances Patterson says that this is the biggest hall the trio have played in. The size of the hall and its wonderful acoustic have clearly encouraged them to present one of the boldest programmes I’ve heard in the Emerging Artists series: there are  only four works, two of them challenging and unfamiliar pieces from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Joanna Stark tells us that Bach’s Goldberg variations were written for keyboard to divert the  patron during his sleepless nights. The trio arrangement by Sarudiansky, gives the three instruments equal billing, and the players combine in harmonies and counterpoint making a magnificent sound. Ending the series of four movements with a repeat of the ‘Aria’ does, as she suggests, let us see the work in a different light.

French violist Suzanne Godet, who spent part of her musical education in Finland, introduces a Trio by Finnish composer, Melartin, whose work she describes as post-romantic. The four movements contain thrilling and exciting elements, as well as some bleak writing on the lower notes of the instruments. It is certainly a showcase for the players’ exceptional abilities and all credit for their commitment to making a case for this difficult work, which resounds beautifully in the Usher Hall acoustic. In that respect the ensemble’s “bold” decision has paid off.

However, I found myself unprepared for, and eventually baffled by, much of what went on in the music. Factual information in the programme and spoken introduction was sparse. Brief details of the  composer, Erkki Melartin 1875-1937, and his Trio in A Minor Opus 155 written in 1927, with the names/markings (allegro, andante etc) of the four movements should have been in the printed programme, and the onstage introduction could have described features of this modernist music,  indicating to the audience what to look out for.

Instead the players  chose to introduce today’s music in the printed programme and in their spoken introductions mainly through natural metaphors, something many listeners may find more helpful than musical terminology. Their work to break down borders or barriers to music appreciation may also have convinced them of this. But there has to be room for both approaches, and meditating on rivers flowing through landscapes didn’t, I’m afraid, help me with the Melartin!

I had heard of David Fennessy’s work through his ‘Bog Cantata’, whose British premiere at Greyfriars Kirk by the Dunedin Consort was enthusiastically reviewed for the EMR by Donal Hurley in March this year. But, on a first hearing, I’m mostly mystified by his recent work ‘An open field, come closer, come closer’ written as a response to Bach’s Goldberg variations. Concert programmes often print a short statement by the composer about new commissions: hearing some of David Fennessy’s ideas might have made an effective introduction.

I know the Peter Maxwell Davies ‘Farewell to Stromness’ well,  and thought Joanna Stark’s arrangement dividing the melodic lines and the trudging accompaniment between the instruments worked splendidly. Frances Patterson did well to remind us that this is no soppy goodbye but Maxwell Davies’ very real fear in 1980 that his adopted home was to be used for a uranium mine.

The good-sized audience has listened attentively, and reactions, though mixed, include a lot of praise for the performance and musical choices. I admire musicians who take risks, but today with limited musical information from the programme notes and the presenters, the hardest pieces of music didn’t work for me.

Next week’s Emerging Artists concert on Monday 29thSeptember at 11 am is the last in this series and features saxophonist Mattthew Kilner and guitarist Kevin Henderson.