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Phillip T Young Recital Hall
August 3, 2011
"Some years ago, a Trio by Schubert passed across the face of the musical world like some angry comet in the sky. It was his hundredth opus, and shortly afterwards, in November 1828, he died."
Schubert's E flat trio (more usually now referred to by its number in Otto Deutsch's catalogue, D.929) is also most unusual in that it received not just one, but two public performances in the composer's lifetime (the companion trio, now significantly the more popular, was only ever played in private before Schubert's death).
Despite Schumann's encomium and this initial popularity, it must be admitted, as Melvin Berger notes, that Schubert's E flat major trio is criticised by some "for being overly long and for having less-than-inspired melodies"; and I am afraid that I would probably consider myself of this tendency.
It was with a very fine performance of the E flat trio that Joan Blackman, Ariel Barnes and Arthur Rowe concluded their recital of Wednesday evening: a performance which, if it did not entirely convert me to an acolyte of the work, at least held my attention throughout.
Throughout the trio, indeed throughout the evening (with one minor exception, which I'll come to) balances between the three players, even in this notoriously difficult-to-balance combination, were exemplary. The opening movement was taken at a tempo giusto, the first subject bold, the second deliciously lyrical. The misterioso opening of the development section and the delectable diminuendo of the close also stand out in the memory.
While generally agreeing that, in this work, Schubert, one of the world's greatest natural melodists, seems not to have been firing on all cylinders, I must make exception for the second movement's main theme, although according to Schubert's friend Leopold Sonnleithner it is a Swedish song introduced to Vienna in 1827 by Issak Albert Berg, a tenor from that country.
Perhaps. But a Swedish song filtered through a decidedly Schubertian sensibility. Barnes played the melody with considerable eloquence; the whole movement was quite lovely, even if the climax was arguably a little fierce.
The perky, playful scherzo preceded that finale, in which Schubert's inventiveness definitely seems to get the better of his internal editor. He even brings back the main theme of the second movement.
I am told, by One Who Knows, that the piano part of this movement is particularly tricky and am quite prepared to accept it; Rowe, of course, made light of any such difficulties even those passages where his left hand seems to be partaking of the trio while his right, apparently, practises one of the piano impromptus from around the same period.
The chamber music of Brahms, I must admit, is a mixed bag for me and I am still trying to work out exactly what it is that makes some of it, for me, essential and some eminently disposable.
The presence of Brahms's own instrument, the piano, seems to be a factor, as does the number of performers.
Which puts the piano trios roughly in the middle of my (personal) dichotomy. On a good day, they can be most enjoyable.
Wednesday was certainly, in terms of the weather, a delightful day. But somehow - and this is probably just me - the seriousness of the C minor trio, Op.101, seemed not entirely appropriate.
It was, though, extremely well played, from the weighty opening to the closing pages of the finale. Blackman and Barnes produced some sumptuous strings tones and there was some gorgeous half-tone playing from all three in the slow movement.
That slow movement did, though, bring the one minor exception to the otherwise immaculate balance between the instruments: Blackman's idea of a pianissimo pizzicato was, to my ears, completely inaudible (the same thing happened in the finale of the Schubert).
Haydn's Trio Hob XV:31 is an unusual work in several respects: it is actually a much later work than the Hoboken catalogue number suggests (in H.C. Robbins Landon's revision, it is numbered forty one - of forty five numbered trios); it is in just two movements and it is in the highly uncommon key of E flat minor. As if that weren't enough, in 1803, when asked by Prince Esterhazy to write a sonata for the wife of French General Moreau, Haydn responded by sending this trio, shorn of its cello part, as a violin sonata.
The evening opened with a wonderfully poised and elegant performance of this eminently civilised music.
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