DEBATING SOCIETY: The Chipping Campden debating Society met onNovember 25 to debate the motion 'This House believes the power of big business is threatening the power of the state'. It was proposed by Mr Keith Studer, seconded by Mr Antony Easthaugh. At first, the dictionary definition of 'threaten' to mean to urge or to induce was adopted. After an election a government takes power, something no business claims. However, business is more consistent and operates over a longer time span than governments which come and go. Business makes a significant contribution to stability. It can compensate for governments' mistakes. It is not illegitimate to seek to influence decision making for there is always an unrepresented minority. Business seeks to influence government by gifts to political parties, to MPs, by the activities of corporate consultants and by taking places on government committees.

The motion was opposed by Mr Michael Miles, seconded by Mr Brian Dickens. There are various ways by which governments can deny control by business. In Japan the powerful conglomerates are directed in certain matters by the government. In Malaya and the Philippines local ownership of multi-nationals is enforced. There is the use of Nationalisation to deny business, the use of regulations, anti-trust laws in the US and the monopolies commission in the UK. Government can always call the shots and business can be swatted down like irritating wasps. It seems unlikely that business can threaten for one can hardly imagine the CBI rushing to man the barricades, If they had influence would there be such penal rates of tax on alcohol, tobacco or petrol? After a sharp debate the motion was carried by a small majority. The chairman warned members that the next meeting on January 27 would be in the Church Rooms, not the Upper Town Hall.

MUSIC SOCIETY: The Dussek Piano Trio, November 21 - Three outstanding international instrumentalists can make even a little-known and ordinary work sound wonderful. So it was with the Dussek Trio, who played Arensky's D Minor Trio on Tuesday night. Apart from Michael Dussek himself, who is not only a professor and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music but also an outstanding concert soloist, the trio consists of Gonzalo Acosta (violin), a Uruguayan, formerly deputy Leader of the CBSO and now co-Leader of English National Opera, and Maragaret Powell (cello), an Australian, who studied with Jacqueline du Pre and has performed all over Europe and the new world. Truly an international ensemble. The Arensky Trio has many reminiscences of Tchaikovsky, by whom Arensky was much influenced to his own detriment. There are beautiful singing melodies in the first movement, and big, bouncing rhythms in the second, intermingled with catchy little phrases that remind one of Palm Court bands of 70 years ago. The third movement has many tuneful snatches to recall Tchaikovsky or Rimsky Korsakov at their most sentimental - None But the Lonely Heart crossed with Capriccio Espagnol. The other two works which the Dussek played were Beethoven's first piano trio of 1792 and Schubert's great E flat major trio. The first of these had a deft assurance, a neatness born of long familiarity, but with splendid contrasts of light and dark, strong and soft, in the last two movements. The Schubert Trio is one of the broadest and most taxing works for piano trio, composed in his last and most productive year before his tragic death at the age of 31. The work has majesty and a sense of inevitability. The Dussek trio produced a grand sweeping sound as rich as an orchestra, overwhelming in its fullness and depth, with an insistent onward march towards the wonderful climax. This really was a first-class concert, of which the Campden Music Society can be genuinely proud. Jeremy Bourne.