REVIEW: Champion Czechs light up the evening in Tickhill

The trio have have been together for 25 years and it showed in the rapport between violin, cello and piano.

They started with a piece by their namesake, written in 1951 while he was in exile in New York.

Martinu’s music has a reputation for being ‘difficult’, but the trio succeeded in making it accessible and enjoyable.

To use a familiar phrase, this was followed by something entirely different, in the form of a trio by Mendelssohn.

Although the piano took the lead, all three players displayed remarkable empathy in their interpretation of the piece.

The finale to the evening took the form of Beethoven’s Archduke trio.

The programme note reminded us that Beethoven played the piano part at the premiere in 1814 and received unflattering reviews for his playing, which was not helped by his increasing deafness.

No such criticism could be levelled at the Martinu Trio, whose performance came as close as was possible to perfect ensemble playing.

If that were not enough, the evening closed with the trio playing an encore and evoking their homeland with a movement from Dvorak’s Dumky Trio.

The audience was left in no doubt that they had witnessed an evening of very special music-making.