Review: Youth and vibrancy galore to be found at Lichfield Festival
I doubt if there is anything more exhilarating in classical chamber music than groups of young musicians who combine ferocious energy with growing expertise, giving performances that set the heart dancing.
Yes, they may in the future find more depth and refinement as their careers in music progress, and some will even become virtuosos, establishing international reputations and creating recordings to treasure.
But there is absolute joy to be found in the Young Musicians concerts which have become a vital feature of the mainly-classical Lichfield Festival, which runs until July 20 in various venues.
The opening week’s highlight, for me, was the vibrant performance by the young Paddington Trio (like the bear and his adoptive family, they first got together at Paddington Station).
At St Michael’s Church on Saturday, they thrilled the audience with some rare classical gems: Edvard Grieg’s Andante in C minor (from an unfinished trio work), French composer Vincent D’Indy’s Piano Trio No.2, and modern Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi’s gorgeous landscape-inspired Piano Trio No.1, Akacia.
Finnish violinist Tuulia Hero - playing a marvellous historic Stradivarius instrument - Irish cellist Patrick Moriarty and American pianist Stephanie Tang brought these pieces to life with tremendous intensity. And there were even more dramatic fireworks to come in their concluding offering, Ravel’s Piano Trio in A minor - a familiar work given a tremendously exciting interpretation in this performance.
There was plenty of exciting playing, too, from the young Talland Quartet at Wade Street Church on Thursday. Violinists Dylan Edge and Orla McGarrity, with viola player Rebecca Stubbs and cellist Nathan Jackson-Turner strongly emphasised the revolutionary harmonies which open the Mozart String Quartet No.19 (named the ‘Dissonance’ for its challenging tones). But after this popular work, they offered another rare and quite sublime gem: the String Quartet in E-flat major by Mendelssohn - not the celebrated composer Felix, but by his sister Fanny.
There’s a fair helping of jazz as well as classical music at the festival, and singer-pianist Joe Stilgoe won a standing ovation when he appeared with his trio at the arts centre The Hub At St Mary’s on Friday. His versions of popular pieces such as Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” and a medley of Beatles hits were particularly well received, but his quite moving performance of the melancholic “Witchita Line Man” - composed by Jimmy Webb and made famous by Glen Campbell - was the highlight for me.
Concerts to come this week at Lichfield Cathedral include the popular Tony Hadley on Tuesday (July 15), folk band The Unthanks on Wednesday, bass-bariton eSir Willard White with the Brodsky Quartet on Thursday, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales with rising star solo violinist Hana Chang on Saturday. Other events during the festival include theatrical presentations and talks.
For programme details see lichfieldfestival.org.
