Mai quand elle sourit - Ian Wilson
Archduke Trio - Beethoven
Gypsy Rondo Trio - Haydn
The Seven Last Words - Ian Wilson
Belfast-born Ian Wilson, currently composer-in-residence in Co Leitrim, was a fairly obvious choice as featured composer for this year's Boyle Arts Festival across the border in Co Roscommon. The British piano trio Kammerspiel have been associated with Wilson's music for the last five years or so, and committed a number of his works to disc in 1997. The composer introduced his chosen programme, as offering two balanced halves, each with its lighter work placed first, Wilson and Beethoven before the interval, Haydn and Wilson after it.
Kammerspiel's advocacy of Wilson's music is as persuasive in concert as it is on disc. The Second Piano Trio (The Seven Last Words of 1995), follows a tradition that goes back as far as Haydn and Schutz, and has been taken up more recently by composers as diverse as Sofia Gubaidulina, James MacMillan and Alan Ridout. Wilson's substantial trio, which plays continuously for around 30 minutes, is direct of gesture, sometimes spare (he's not afraid to exploit the simplest of ideas), and highly effective in a way that is reminiscent of Messiaen, but without ever really sounding like the great French master's work.
The work held its crucial place in the programme - it was a daring idea to have it following Beethoven and Haydn - more successfully than Mai quandelle sourit . . . (1993), which didn't really fulfil its role as an appetiser to Beethoven.
Kammerspiel's playing of Haydn and Beethoven was, for the most part, characterised by a nourishing plainness. A few moments in the Haydn apart, there was nothing superfluous on display, no personal touches to distract from or get in the way of the music. And when the music is as great as Beethoven's Archduke and Haydn's Gypsy Rondo trios, that's a recipe for music-making to savour.
