Last updated 05:36, Friday, 25 July 2008

Findhorn TrioThe Findhorn Trio (Neil Mantle, Roderick Long and Gillian Gray) treated the Festival audience to a pair of works not, I guess, often performed in Cumbria - the horn trios of Berkeley and Brahms.

Their decision to play them in that order was right: the Berkeley is an attractive and interesting work, while the Brahms is one of the great pieces of chamber music. The Berkeley consists of theme and variations. The theme seems simple as first presented, but repeated notes and rhythmic figures are given a fascinating development where first one sound predominates, then another; now there are three voices, now two.

For the Brahms, the cathedral acoustic set the performers a problem: how to keep three resonant voices speaking separately. Their choice to keep the piano closed was probably wise. While in the outer movements it was sometimes difficult to hear the piano, at the heart of the piece, in the sombre third movement, the dark and withdrawn character of the music was perfectly conveyed. The trio as a whole, alternating between intense lyricism and bounding rhythmic passages, is a formidable virtuoso exercise. This reviewer listened with especial delight to the splendid range of Neil Mantle’s horn playing.

KEITH MACLENNAN