Erato Trio, Kendal Town Hall

KENDAL Midday Concert Club has, during its illustrious history, regularly attracted some of the world’s finest musicians to its fold. Recently, for instance, it welcomed the Erato Trio, a young ensemble perhaps unknown to club members.

By virtue of their technical and emotional musicianship, their total awareness of the demands of their genre, their close contact with their audience and their ability to present well-constructed programmes, three highly-gifted players, Yuri Kalnits (violin), Julia Morneweg (cello) and José Menor (piano), are rapidly developing into an ensemble that is strongly-establishing itself on the international front.

A wide-ranging array of works - a Haydn Piano Trio, Suk’s Elegie and Ravel’s Piano Trio - enabled the trio’s newly-acquired admirers to appreciate their stylistic versatility, their virtuosity, their attention to intimate detail, their quest for beauty of sound and (generally) their immaculate sense of balance.

Then, amidst all the concerted splendour, and perhaps unfairly, I spotlight Menor’s pianism. He was the perfect linchpin. Slight of physique, with small, compact hands and with a technique to die for, he was always there, always listening but rarely dominating.