THE latest community news from Dolgellau.

Music Club

THOSE who’d set the match to record and came to hear the Piatti Quartet in Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor on Friday, 10 March, had the best of both worlds, enjoying a time-lapsed Wales victory and a superb evening’s music. The Piattis (pictured) began their recital with Haydn’s Op.20 No.2, the second of a miraculous set of six that mark (around 1770) the birth of the string quartet as we know it - in the sense that all four players are equal performers. A jump to the 1930s and Brit-ten’s three youthful Divertimen-ti made an excellent contrast, all three pieces having some 20th-century ‘jagged edges’ whilst being instantly enjoyable. Turina’s ‘Bullfighter’s Prayer’ of 1925, evoking the toreador on his knees in a small incense-filled chapel before going out to face the crowds, hot sun and possible death, made a vivid close to the first half. It has been said that Brahms’s second string quartet, Op.51 No.2 in A minor, is ‘a tale of two cities, Budapest and Vienna’, meaning that it combines the fire of the Hungarian gypsy tradition with the sophistication of quartet construction dating back to Haydn. The Piatti Quartet were fully equal to both challenges, with impeccable tuning and respect for dynamics combined with an intensity and emotional engagement that had the audience hanging on every note. It was already clear from the rush for CDs in the interval that this programme was going down extremely well, and so it proved to the end.

The Southall Trust was thanked for sponsoring the event.

The final concert of the 2016-17 series, at 8pm (not 7.30pm) on Friday, 7 April in Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor, will be given by the Holborne Brass Ensemble.