THE Kendal Midday Concert Club's first recital of 2003 was stunning. Season after season its audiences are regularly regaled by musicians of the highest calibre and I find it impossible to bestow sufficient accolade on their achievements.

The globe-trotting violinist, Marat Bisangaliev, and the magnificent Yorkshire pianist Benjamin Frith were their most recent visitors and they treated us to a display of instrumental skills that will long remain in our memories.

First and foremost, as befits a duo, their teamwork was incredibly polished whereever one partner led he could be sure that his colleague would follow with consummate musicianship. Their programme, consisting almost entirely of relatively short, familiar salon pieces by Rachmaninov, Elgar and others less well-known demanded this level of co-operation. Had they included a work of more meaty substance and I, personally, wish they had I am sure there would have been identical cohesion; indeed, their Bach Sonata and Vitali Chaconne (this given an unexpected Romantic hue) showed their expertise with larger canvases they were both beautifully detailed.

Mr Bisangaliev illuminated the music with all manner of technical wizardry assured bow control and use of harmonics, double and triple stopping, acrobatic position shifts, a general security of intonation, glittering passage-work and beguiling tone. Mr Frith, with an awesome technique (yet wondrously self-effacing), was in complete command of his Steinway the perfect partner in every way.

January 16, 2003 09:30