REVIEW - Courtesy, Daily Echo

Bournemouth Chamber Music Society, Talbot Heath School

Dynamic duo thrill audience

This was no ordinary recital and these were no ordinary musicians. Undertaking two of the most significant works for cello and piano were Thomas Carroll and Llyr Williams.

Brahms’ Sonata in F major, opus 99 requires assertive attention to its frequent forays into aggressive lyricism, maintained here by the duo with an exceptional ear for this underlying flow. The powerful projection of pizzicato and fleet fingerwork from Carroll set against the brilliance of Williams’ necessarily turbulent playing was thrilling.

The preceding Beethoven Cello Sonata in A, opus 69 wears its memorably melodic cloak with a warm glow. It too has moments of poetic fire besides the more convivial cantilena from the cello in the final movement’s Andante Cantabile. Again Carroll and Williams were fully immersed in the spirit of the piece. And they conveyed all the charm and vitality of the most engaging Mendelssohn’s Variations Concertantes in D, opus 17.

Mike Marsh