Strathearn Music Society Review – Flute Viola Harp
Wed 11th September 2024
It seems no time at all since Strathearn Music Society’s last season ended in March, but here we are again with a whole new series of Concerts in Crieff to relish and look forward to – and no two concerts are ever remotely similar, so variety and interest are always assured.
Last Wednesday evening the curtain was raised for 2024-25 by three of Scotland’s most experienced chamber musicians: Ruth Morley (flute), Scott Dickinson (viola) and Sharon Griffiths (harp). Now accepted as a standard ensemble, this combination of instruments dates back only just over a century and probably owes much of its popularity to Debussy’s Sonata of 1915 – the first significant composition for this particular line-up – which, unsurprisingly, provided the conclusion of this evening’s programme. Intended by the composer as part of a comprehensive set of six sonatas featuring most of the familiar orchestral colours and sounds of his time in different and more intimate permutations, this work marked the midway point in a project which was sadly only half completed by the time of his death in 1918.
Bookending the other end of this concert was Arnold Bax’s Elegiac Trio, a work almost certainly taking a lead from the Frenchman’s example and dating from the following year. On either side of the concert interval the full group joined forces twice more, firstly in Two Interludes from Jacques Ibert’s incidental music for a 1946 play based on the story of the notorious womaniser Don Juan, and secondly for “And then I knew ‘Twas Wind” (1992) by Toru Takemitsu. The latter, calm and meditative in mood, takes its title from a poem by Emily Dickinson which reflects on the connections between nature and the human soul.
Solos by each of the trio’s members linked the ensemble pieces, adding to the kaleidoscopic pattern of their programme. A Prelude for viola by Eddie McGuire (introduced by the composer himself) harked back to childhood memories of Elvis Presley (!), variations on a traditional Welsh air highlighted the harp with its bardic and Celtic associations, while Ruth Morley (composer as well as performer) gave the World Premiere of her own “Whisper” for solo flute, using the instrument in a disturbing musical plea for kindness and thoughtfulness in opposition to the baser voices of humankind. A delightful Nocturne for flute harp by Lili Boulanger completed the menu.
This Trio’s unique sound is transparent and at times ethereal, the careful and sensitive interplay between the three voices creating an atmosphere as much felt and perhaps seen in the imagination as it is appreciated by the ear. Food for musical thought indeed, and lingering in the mind long after the sound of its final notes had died away, this was settled and mature music-making at its best.
