Written By Keith Bruce
MUSIC AT PAXTON 2025
Paxton House, by Berwick
The show that Paxton festival director Angus Smith created around the life of Winnaretta Singer, the American sewing machine heiress who married into Parisien society as the Princesse de Polignac, has much in common with a musical score.
The former tenor in the Orlando Consort first produced it with Ensemble 360 during his time as artistic director of Sheffield’s Music in the Round. It leaves plenty of room for improvisation by the actor portraying the grande dame in her salon and allows for a wide range of repertoire from the featured musical ensemble.
Its incarnation for this year’s Music at Paxton teamed Maggie Steed with the Chloe Piano Trio and enjoyed the huge advantage of happening in the Paxton Picture Gallery, the festival’s principal venue and perfect for a recreation of the philanthropist’s “at-homes”.
Steed made her entrance as our indomitable hostess stage right and summoned the players from her left, pianist George Todica opening proceedings with Satie’s Gymnopedie No 1 before being joined by cellist Jobine Siekman for Faure’s Elegie in C Minor and then violinist Maria Gilicel for the final movement of Ravel’s Piano Trio in A Minor.
The musical selection box mixed pieces that owed their commissioning to Winnaretta’s musical enthusiasm with works that the trio has championed, and there was ample opportunity for each of the players to demonstrate their virtuosity. Just as impressive was the emotional heft they all brought to the climax of works that they performed without any of the build-up.
The combination of Steed’s story-telling and first-name reminiscences about Claude and Igor with the music of Debussy and Stravinsky was followed by pieces by Lili Boulanger and Cecile Chaminade from the trio’s repertoire, possibly less connected with the Princesse’s salon but paving the way for their own recital in the same space the following morning.
That programme opened with Beethoven’s “Ghost” Piano Trio of 1808 and closed with Amy Beach’s Opus 150 Piano Trio in A Minor of 1938. Few young groups play with as much personality as the Chloe, and the pacey ebbs and flows in the intensity of the Beethoven was matched by a palpable joy in the tapestry of sources Beach incorporated into her late work . . .
Please click here to read this review in full on the Vox Carnyx website.
