Bradfield Festival of Music, Festival Report

There was magic in the building tonight. There are performances where the astonishment comes from the artists, and there are greater performances that sends the audience into a state of mind where the musicians seem to disappear leaving only the music and its innermost reaction. Such was the magic of the Linos Trio tonight.

There has been a recent upsurge of interest in CPE Bach, second son of the great JS Bach, and the Linos have researched and taken it upon themselves to explore the Piano Trio repertoire. Before each of the four pieces tonight, the Linos Trio built a close rapport with the audience with introductions that were relaxed, amusing and erudite (and even provoked applause in themselves!).

The intricate interplay of themes and fragments in the E flat major trio showed that this sense of confidence and relaxed rapport was at the heart of the Trio themselves.

CPE Bach as an innovator, here for small, possibly amateur, groups was performed with the dynamic and brilliance with which the Linos are already well known.

Peter Cropper late of the Lindsay Quartet here in Sheffield had Beethoven at his soul. He was mentor to the Linos up to two weeks before his death in 2015, and to have this connection in the performance of the Op. 70 Piano Trio “The Ghost” is significant. I was fortunate to meet Peter Cropper, albeit in a symposium setting. His open and intense perspective on Beethoven had an impact on everyone around him. He regarded Beethoven as a life-long friend, and would become tearful and emotional when explaining how this relationship was just so complicated, never being sure where an argument would take you, how the colours would change, and yet always being supportive and by his side.

It is very obvious that the Linos have taken on the full weight of this giant of the Beethoven chamber repertoire and presented it back to their audiences in such a luminous and emotionally charged performance.

This work was the first time of two this evening where I almost forgot there were performers – the music itself was at the forefront of the experience.

By way of a little light relief, the collection of (mostly) dance movements in miniature from Rebel’s Les Caractères de la Danse was lively and joyful, sensual and dramatic, sometimes echoing drone instruments, sometimes brazenly portraying a mood. This was the Linos in intimate mode, an amuse-bouche preceding the emotional journey yet to come.

The final programmed work was the Ravel Piano Trio from 1914. Its movements are funereal in name, and that relates to the imminence of the war in Europe just becoming impactful at the time.

And yet the unbounded energy of Basque dance, Indonesian gamelan, and numerous other influences give this work a worldly breadth that was painted with such energy and tenderness by the Linos.

This was an emotional journey, and the continued rapport with the audience here was palpable: there is no question that the performers and audience alike were in the same place, physically and emotionally. I spoke to Prach Boondiskulchok (piano) after the performance who was full of praise for the engagement and intent listening of the Bradfield audience and how they as performers felt this coming back to the platform as they themselves took us though this journey.

Finally, what else could be performed as an encore but the Ravel Pavane pour une infante défunte, beautifully performed in their own arrangement. If anyone ever wanted to witness how in-tune the audience and performers were here, the long silence as the last chords died away in the transparent acoustic of St Nicholas’ Church was held for a full twenty seconds before finally interrupted by a standing ovation and rapturous applause.

One frequent visitor to the festival was heard to remark that this was the best concert he had ever enjoyed in Bradfield – and we have had many great performances over the last 26 years. I have to agree, and how fitting it is that this was the last concert sponsored by the late Barbara Holder, who has been a friend of the festival for many years and who died earlier this year.