We were in good hands as we listened to the Gryphon Trio bring us the music of Beethoven, Ryan, and Dvořak on Friday evening at the Matsqui Centennial Auditorium.
I was struck by the arc of the program they had prepared for us. It opened with the music of a hotshot young composer, the twenty-two-year-old Beethoven blazing onto the scene with music that even Haydn found to be so adventurous as to be risky for the young man to publish.
It closed with the work of a mature musician, the forty-two-year-old Antonin Dvořak at the height of his powers. His trio plumbed the depths of grief at the loss of his mother in the musical language of his native Bohemia all within the architecture of the prevailing European musical forms. Only a true master could do all that and still reach us with his feelings.
This contrast put me in mind of a parallel contrast in performers. We are regularly amazed by precocious young talents. I can’t forget the stunning performance by Johan Dalene in our series last March. We will hear from another rising star when Jeneba Kanneh-Mason comes to Abbotsford in February.
These young phenoms have earned their spot in the public eye by virtue of their remarkable talent. They already possess exquisite technical mastery, they have something to say, and they have learned how to communicate it persuasively. But they’re young. They amaze us, delight us, move us. But they’re still young.
The Gryphon Trio showed us something else on Friday. Theirs was a masterful performance. It was the work of the finest professionals. All the qualities that amaze us in the dazzling youngsters were there. But there was something else as well—the depth of understanding that comes with repeated performances over the years, the confident communication of each piece’s heart, and the evergreen passion of artists who simply love what they do. They had become the chimera—three entities that were now one.
Yes, they really were professionals in the best sense of the word. There is something indefinable about it. You know it when you hear it.
We were in good hands last Friday. It was a privilege to have been there.
John Wiebe
President
The Valley Concert Society