MiV Home
First Unitarian Church
June 6, 2010
Joseph Haydn wrote some forty-five works for keyboard trio - although the first five were for harpsichord rather than piano - and of these two are lost. The resulting set of thirty-eight may be a mere bagatelle compared with eighty-five string quartets, 107 symphonies and - heaven help us - 176 baryton trios, but is still a large enough collection that we must regret the fact that only a handful of them are played with any regularity today - and all too often it is the overexposed "Gypsy" we are offered.
All the more reason to enjoy Sunday afternoon's performance of the Trio in A, Hob XV:18, which closed the first half of the latest concert in the Eine Kleine Summer Music Series.
Müge Büyükçelen, Laura Backstrom and Robert Holliston gave a fine performance whose keyword was "elegance" - and can there be, in the whole of Western Music, anything more civilised than Haydn's trios? Balances were very good and there was a distinct air of the playful in the opening movement. The slow movement's contrasts between major and minor were beautifully done and the finale tripped along in jolly fashion.
This is, perhaps, not profound music; it is, however (especially when this well played) profoundly satisfying.
Gabriel Fauré is best-known today for his Requiem of 1893 (a work which has always struck me as being singularly anaemic) and a handful of other works. His chamber music, of which there is quite a bit, rarely gets much of an airing.
It was with Fauré's Piano Quartet No.2 in G minor that Sunday's concert closed. Violist Joanna Hood joined Büyükçelen, Backstrom and Holliston for a performance which, if it didn't exactly turn me into an enthusiast, came as close as any performance is likely to.
The problem, I am sure dear Brutus, is not in the stars but in me: Fauré has always struck me as occupying an uncomfortable middle ground in French music between, on the one hand, the technicolour (and sometimes cloying) chromaticism of Franck and, on the other, the stunning originality of Debussy and the crystalline clarity of Ravel. He is neither fish nor fowl.
Part of my difficulty with this particular work is the composer's tendency to have the strings frequently play in parallel against rapid piano figurations. This certainly solves most of the balance problems which might otherwise be encountered, but all too often it also results in a stridency that seems somehow un-Gallic.
The performance itself, as I have already intimated, was very fine, full of passion and well played. Hood's playing of the lyrical second subject in the opening movement was delectable and the contrast between the passionate first and more relaxed second subjects was exemplary.
For me, the highlight (indeed the only part of the music I'd voluntarily listen to again) was the adagio non troppo third movement, allegedly inspired by church bells (which must sound quite different in France from the English ones I grew up with). The music - and the playing - was ardent and quite lovely.
Alas, it was followed by the somewhat rowdy and aimless finale. I should, however, in all fairness point out that the capacity audience seemed to enjoy it greatly: the loss, it would seem, was all mine.
The concert opened with what must surely be one of the earliest examples of a sonata for cello and piano, Beethoven's Op.5, No.1 from the mid-1790s.
Backstrom and Holliston gave the music a fine reading, from the stately opening adagio introduction to the lightly tripping finale. It was the perfect curtain-raiser for the afternoon.
It may have been raining outside - the very first time, in nineteen seasons of attending Eine Kleine concerts, that I can remember the weather being so inclement - but mere precipitation cannot put a damper on first-rate musicmaking.
MiV Home