THE GOULD PIANO TRIO AND ROBERT PLANE

Review by Roger Higson

Another wonderful concert! Considered by some to have been one of the best yet.
Ripon Concerts is full of exciting new ideas and innovations. If you blink you miss them. This
concert was in the style of a tasting menu – extracts from several works, clearly and
enthusiastically explained by one of the musicians and a talk by video by the composer of
one of the featured musical items.

The concert started with highly competent performances by two young musicians, Jemima
(oboe) and Nadia (saxophone). Described by Richard Lester, cellist of The Gould Trio, as “a
great warm up act”!

The concert itself was a triumph. The Gould Piano Trio: Ben Frith, Lucy Gould and Richard
Lester with clarinettist Robert Plane are highly accomplished musicians and great
communicators. They took the audience through a variety of chamber pieces, ranging from
a movement from a Beethoven piano trio to a newly commissioned piece by Piers Hellawell
to celebrate the life of St Wilfrid.

The concert programme was built around four movements from one of the greatest pieces
of chamber music ever written. Olivier Messiaen composed The Quartet for the End of Time
when a prisoner during WWII in Stalag VIII-A in Görlitz, and it was first performed in the
camp in front of 200 other POWs – a fitting and sobering memory on Remembrance Sunday.
There was complete silence for some moments at the end of the last movement as though
the audience had been transfixed and transported to another level of existence before they
warmly and at length applauded a quite brilliant performance.

We all went away feeling that we had been gently and entertainingly introduced to some
great music and played by one of the finest chamber ensembles. We had learnt much, and
had our appetites whetted to hear more.

Thank you Ripon Concerts, The Gould Piano Trio and Robert Plane for a memorable afternoon of music making.

Roll on the next concert on December 14 when jazz meets the classics!

The Gould Trio

Lucy Gould – violin

Richard Lester – cello

Benjamin Frith - piano

with Robert Plane, Clarinet.

 

Walter Rabl: Clarinet Quartet in E flat major, op. 1, 1st movement

Olivier Messiaen: Quartet for the End of Time - movements 4. Intermède and 5. Louange à l'Éternité de Jésus

Gerald Finzi: Five Bagatelles, op. 23 - 3 of the 5

Rebecca Clarke: Piano Trio, 1st mov

Interval

Piers Hellawell: New Commission: The Rising of Sirius (inspired by St Wilfrid)

Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Trio in E flat major, op. 70, no. 2, Allegretto

Olivier Messiaen: Quartet for the End of Time,  excerpts from movement 7. Fouillis d'arcs-en-ciel, pour l'Ange qui annonce la fin du Temps and 8. Louange à l'Immortalité de Jésus

 

Photo Credits: Gould Trio ©Jake Morley; Robert Plane © Sara Porter