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The final concert of the 2009-10 season was a piano recital (postponed from January) by Robert Chesters given in Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor on Friday 9th April. A fairly recent graduate of the Royal Northern College, Robert Chesters clearly has a tremendous talent, and showed this to good advantage in a well-chosen programme that was very warmly received.

The first half presented works by Scarlatti, Haydn and Schubert that brought out a wide range of colours and sonorities in the Coleg’s Bechstein, a fine instrument whose attributes are enhanced by the responsive acoustic of the wood-panelled hall (a fortunate legacy from Dr. Williams’ school). Scarlatti was writing for the harpsichord, and the quickfire fingerwork required makes considerable technical demands on the performer. So too does Haydn’s Sonata in C major, written for renowned concert pianist Therese Jansen in 1794-5 during one of Haydn’s visits to London. Robert Chesters brought out successfully the piece’s mixture of wit and expressiveness. A more evidently Romantic expressiveness is required in Schubert’s wonderful Impromptus Op. 90, though contained within a tautly structured classical frame. The tempo of the second of the set of the four felt a little pressured, but apart from this the beauty of the music was realised to the full, not least in the singing melody of the third Impromptu in G flat major, and the tricky arpeggio figuring of the fourth in A flat major. It is a good policy to programme such popular pieces but also a risky one, because listeners may well have favourite recordings or performances against which to measure what they are hearing. On this occasion the gamble paid off handsomely.

The second half provided some effective contrasts, with works by Debussy and Liszt. Debussy’s ‘Suite Bergamasque’ contains one of the best-known of all piano pieces, ‘Clair de Lune’, and this too gave the audience a welcome sense of connection and repose. The rest of the Suite is equally accessible, however, with its musical evocation of the moods and character of lovesick clown Harlequin and his amore Columbine (figures of course from the commedia dell’arte, strongly associated with the northern Italian town of Bergamo). Listeners could form vivid pictures here in the mind’s eye. A helpful introduction from the soloist then explained how in 1849 Franz Liszt changed from being first and foremost a virtuoso performer to composing music that, whilst still in many ways virtuosic, has a more inward-looking and meditative core. This is certainly true of the Three Concert Studies, the third of which, ‘Il Sospiro’, is again a very well-known piece. Robert Chesters’ technique and musicianship were equal to the challenge of satisfying both the required dimensions, virtuosic and reflective, of this music. Liszt’s transcription of the Polonaise from Tchaikovsky’s ‘Eugene Onegin’ brought the programme to an exuberant and sparkling conclusion.

Many thanks to all sponsors and supporters in what has proved to be another enjoyable and successful season. It is not quite over! The first concert of the Club in its present incarnation was held on 4th October 1985; the concert described above has thus brought to an end a sequence of twenty-five seasons’ music-making. In celebration of this, a ‘Cyngerdd Mawreddog’/Grand Concert is planned for Friday 2nd July. More details of this to follow in due course.

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