The Ducasse Trio - Charlotte Machet (violin), William Duncombe (clarinet) and Fiachra Garvey (piano) - came together in 2011 and have been wowing audiences ever since with their brilliant, energetic and passionate renditions of classical pieces written for this combination of instruments which have been neglected or forgotten.
This afternoon they graced the stage at The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester and my first impression was just exactly how young and frail they looked, but also how stylish and refreshingly different they looked too. They are young and obviously want to stand out from the crowd, and so their choice of smart casual clothing reflected their image perfectly.
And the music was just fabulous! I mentioned the word passionate before, and that fits here perfectly. They loved the music they were playing for us, and because of this their enthusiasm carried through into the music and out across the audience. Every note was alive and their timing immaculate.
They played first The Histoire Du Soldat No.1 Suite by Stravinsky which certainly saw the violin if nothing else being given a jolly good workout! I loved the penultimate movement here with its clever transitions from tango, through waltz to ragtime.
Then came the piece which I was most interested in hearing, Charles Ives's Largo. I only knew his more radical and experimental works, along with his New England Holiday Symphony and The Unanswered Question, and so this was a very interesting piece which was much more sentimental than I would have thought. Starting very slowly and languorously with solo piano, being then joined by the violin playing a plaintive and slightly discordant melody; then giving way to the clarinet and the whole thing increasing in volume and urgency, only to die down to almost nothing before the opening melody is heard once again, and ends with a single held note from the violin. It was wonderful! 
Nest came music from a composer whose music is always joyous and playful, and for such a modern composer, surprisingly harmonic and melodious. It was The Suite, opus 157B by Milhaud.
And finally, after the frippery and whimsicality of Milhaud, we now buckled down and get serious with the music of Hungarian composer Bela Bartok. Again, Bartok is familiar to me only in his more known and often played works. This was something new, Contrasts Sz.111. It was an interesting piece and the second movement made sure there were no cobwebs in the clarinet, all coming together at the end for a rather theatrical flourish to finish. The piece uses at the beginning of the final movement a tempered violin. (Scordatura tuning). I was extremely interested in hearing this. I am a sometime pianist and have played tempered pianos and so expected there to be a much bigger difference in the sound between that and the regular violin, but to me, the difference was negligible. It left me wondering what it would have sounded like if played on a standard violin, and would you really be able to tell the difference. I'd like to know.
What a huge pity there were so few in this afternoon's audience. The Ducasse Trio are maestros extraordinaire and deserved more for their Bridgewater Hall debut. Perhaps the weather and the time of year put the more regular afternoon concert-goers off. A truly enjoyable and also quite educational hour in your company. Thank you!
Reviewer: Mark Dee
Reviewed: 13th January 2016
