Review: A superb live event

This was the first opportunity to attend a concert in this prize-winning auditorium at Iona College. Photo / Mark Smith

Egmont Ensemble
Benjamin Baker, violin, Jonathan Bloxham, cello and Sam Armstrong, piano.
Music by Beethoven, Gareth Farr, Schubert and Richard Strauss
Blyth Performing Arts Centre
Havelock North. November, Tuesday 17
Reviewed by Peter Williams

This was the first opportunity to attend a concert in this prize-winning auditorium at Iona College. There is no doubt about the excellent acoustic qualities with the building's wooden lining, plus the uncluttered interior, excellent sight lines the superb Fazioli grand piano making a perfect setting. Benefiting the Save the Children Fund, this was the third last of 10 concerts in a nation-wide tour by these skilled prize-winning musicians under the auspices of the London-based Royal Overseas League.

Beethoven's Piano Trio in E flat major Op 1, No1 made exciting listening and a fine opening to the programme. The outer fast movements were vividly expressive and crystal clear in all their detail, showing an impressive command of all that Beethoven required.

The expansive piano part was brilliantly played, but unfortunately here, and at other times throughout the concert, the piano part was sometimes too strident and out of balance with the string players - the result perhaps of working in a variety of venues and playing a different piano in each place. The cello and violin solo lines in the Adagio cantabile second movement were affecting in their elegant phrasing.

The performance of the commissioned piece by NZ composer Gareth Farr, Forbidden Colours, was certainly convincing as the players skilfully overlaid the busy string and piano parts to capture easily all that is expressed in the title.

The overt Romantic quality of the music was portrayed clearly in the single movement Notturno in E flat major Op 148 by Schubert, with lovely sustained playing in the slow introduction and an impressive display from all three players in the second part.

The final item was a duo, Sonata for violin and piano in E flat Op 18 by Richard Strauss.

Benjamin Baker gave a fine account of the violin part with a lovely quality to the shape of the phrasing and delicately balanced dynamic shading in the magical ending to the Improvisation second movement.

The Finale was a hugely impressive with the full impact of the romantic quality of the music given full rein by both players.

The two string players are also pianists, showing their prowess in a piano arrangement for six hands of a composition by Faure as a novel encore.