Arutiunian, Menotti & Wolf etc

Ives Largo for violin, clarinet and piano
Menotti & Arutiunian Trios for clarinet, violin and piano

Purcell/Britten The Plaint from The Faerie Queen; The Virgin's Expostulation
Schubert The Shepherd on the Rock
Wolf Keller songs etc

Eidos Trio William Stafford clarinet Ilya Movchan violin Konstantin Lapshin piano
Mary Bevan soprano Sholto Kynoch piano

Kirckman Concert Society, Wigmore Hall, 22 January 2012

A year after their auspicious Wigmore Hall debut, the Eidos Trio (formed at the Royal College of Music 2008) returned to share with Mary Bevan (deputising for her sister Sophie*) a fascinating concert of chamber music and song.

The trio brought to London two of the astonishing c.200 commissions of the Verdehr Trio (Michigan State University) for their line up, which the Eidos concert last January sparked our interest. That Eidos Trio concert was filmed live. My illustration is a still from the DVD, with excellent sound, which can be obtained from the trio: klapshin@rcm.ac.uk.

The two main Eidos items this year were light, audience friendly trios by Menotti (derivative, close to Poulenc) and Arutiunian (replete with Armenian folk music) which would have roused a younger audience's enthusiasm. The elderly Kirckman Society audience enjoyed it all, but backstage disappointment was expressed that it was so small, with the designated critics seats conspicuously empty in the back rows...

The Wigmore Hall regulars who avoided this interesting concert missed a remarkable set of Hugo Wolf rarities from Mary Bevan & Sholto Kynoch.

The Old Melodies to Gottfried Keller was a huge discovery for those of us almost too well used to the Morike, Goethe, Italian & Spanish books which are regularly given at Wigmore Hall. They were delightful and memorable - with some dauntingly difficult piano epilogues which Kynoch delivered with aplomb. It is good news that their performance of them together at the Oxford Lieder Festival will be released on CD this Spring.

Mary was deputising for her sister Sophie; hear them together [L] on a YouTube posting of Sull'aria from the Marriage of Figaro.

Peter Grahame Woolf