Mediterranea Trio, Chichester Cathedral, June 14th.I'm not convinced about the acoustics in Chichester Cathedral. Its long, narrow, deep space with arches into the aisles perhaps has too many spaces to fill and too many suefaces to echo from. It's best top get close to the instruments and row five, half an hour before the start is a good enough result.
The Mediterranea are a pleasant, understated trio formed at the Royal College of Music eight years ago. If the piano and violin, Elenlucia and Markella, took most of our attention in these pieces, Alessandro's cello was always worth looking out for.
Haydn, well-mannered and civilized as ever, was their first composer, the Trio in C Hob xv:27, elegant, formal, seemingly never too serious and redolent of a happier age, for those who could afford such luxuries. We should be grateful more of us can hear such pieces now.
But, not for the first time in a chamber concert, Debussy was the unexpected highlight. Lush and lyrical, the Trio in G, L.3 suggested first of all that Debussy has been catalogued by somebody beginning with L and no longer has opus numbers but secondly that his chamber music needs further investigation. The andante began with some pizzicato interplay between violin and cello and the finale showed the cello to best effect in its swan-like theme and the piece was never troubled by dark thoughts or anxities.
Last year I followed up a concert of the string quartet by ordering a CD of it but the recording lacked the immediacy of the live performance. But I'm going to try again so that I can hear this piece
some more.
