Two more concerts

I am (or was) writing this in an Express Lube Drive Thru line, waiting for our car to be serviced. Last night's concert was Romantic all the way through, starting with another Beethoven Violin Sonata (they're featuring these at the Chamber Music Festival this year). Then followed one of the Brahms Clarinet Sonatas, the less familiar Number 2, played by Kimball Sykes whose clarinet keys caused him annoyance by sticking, so that he had to break the flow to adjust them a couple of times. Another performer with an expressive face, he punctuates the music with lifts of his eyebrows. The final item was Rachmaninov's 2nd Trio Elégiaque, fire and fury interspersed by long, lyrical softer passages, with the strings often playing in octaves or stating and answering a theme in the same register like two alto voices. The composer must have liked the sound of the violin's G-string. Listen to the opening and see if you can tell which is the violin and which the cello! The instrumentalists were Erika Raum and Shauna Rolston, with Alexander Tselyakov at the piano. Ms Rolston was playing an unconventional 'cello, varnished black with a curved point instead of a scroll above the pegbox.

11:55
Here I am, back in St Andrew's, having brought the car back from the far end of town and hopped onto my bike, pedalling hard to make it to the front pew once again. I'm going to hear a horn, oboe and viola this time. I can recognise faces of the other faithful concert-goers. A lady I know, wearing her red volunteer's T-shirt for the festival, is going round the pews trying to flog metal water bottles with the festival logo. Good idea!

Then the musicians come in. The oboist, expecting a baby, has commissioned the first piece herself, for which this is a first performance. Her friend, the composer Eric Ross is not present, for he too is about to become a parent and in his case the birth is imminent, apparently. His Chaconne for oboe, horn and piano is introduced as an introspective one, very pleasant to listen to, with melody lines entwining: two slow movements bracketing a faster one. Next, a pair of Rhapsodies for oboe, viola and piano entitled L'Etang and La Cornemuse, by Charles Loeffler. Despite his mixed, Alsatian background, his music with its folksy elements (double-stopped drones, a flurry of ornamentation on the oboe) comes across as very French, to me. The last piece is for horn, oboe and piano again, a light-hearted trio by Carl Reinecke, the wind players sitting directly opposite one another so that they can easily communicate with one another by nods and smiles.