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Phillip T Young Recital Hall
August 8, 2015
Joseph Haydn is widely credited with having "invented" the string quartet; his similar rôle in the creation of the piano trio seems less highly regarded. (In his "Guide to Chamber Music", for example, Melvin Berger devotes some forty-two pages to Haydn's quartets - well, to the thirty best-known - and to the piano trios? Four words, precisely.)
But then the string quartet is generally more respected - both as medium and ensemble - than the piano trio. Most music-lovers could probably name half-a-dozen currently active quartets without blinking an eye; piano trios? rather fewer.
Which is a pity, for a case could surely be made for the piano trio as the superior form: it does, after all, have at its disposal all of the tone colours of which the piano is capable.
There can, though, surely be no doubting that, should anyone present in the Phillip T Young Recital Hall on Saturday be asked to name a currently active, world-class piano trio, the Gryphon Trio will immediately spring to mind.
The trio opened their programme with Haydn - the Trio in E, Hob. XV No.28. The work was published in 1797, although scholars have as yet been unable to determine whether or not it was composed during Haydn's second visit to England.
In his spoken introduction - commendably both audible and to the point - James Parker promised "fresh and charming" music and this was precisely how the trio presented the opening movement.
After a brief introduction, the slow movement launches into a lengthy piano solo, after which, as H.C. Robbins Landon says, "the string instruments are used only to strengthen the total sound". I'd venture to demur; certainly, as played by the Gryphons, the re-introduction of the strings sounded like a master-stroke of ambiguity, with the listener suddenly unsure as to whether the piano is the solo instrument or whether it is actually providing a decorative accompaniment to the strings' hymn-like theme. A delicious moment.
The finale skipped merrily along to its jovial conclusion. My abiding memory, though, is of three musicians whose playing was totally at the service of the music.
"Lock the doors! Canadian music!" warned Parker before the trio played Love Triangle by Dinuk Wijeratne, although he denied any personal connection to the title. (Personally, I suspect it to be an extract from a "tweet", as I believe "messages" on Twitter are called - "Like Square. Love Triangle!", or something similar. But I digress.)
The warning proved totally unnecessary, as the piece was a most attractive one. The first part - although I was fooled by the beginning, which sounded as if the cellist were tuning up - was wonderfully rhythmic, with a seven beat (alternating bars of 3/4 and 4/4) ostinato underlying melodic lines which would not have sounded out of place in the Souk in Cairo.
The second part was less intense and perhaps a little less interesting, but the piece did at least build to a "proper" ending - it did not, like so much recent music, simply stop.
Needless to say, it was brilliantly and most persuasively played. Another composer to investigate.
In his BBC Music Guide to Mendelssohn's chamber music, John Horton writes that "Mendelssohn never wrote a stronger sonata-form allegro" than the opening movement of his Piano Trio Op.66.
Mendelssohn's second trio is heard less frequently than his first, which is a pity, as it is every bit as fine a work. The Gryphons gave a superb performance, with excellent balances and fine tone. (Although I have to say that just occasionally Parker's enthusiasm got the better of him and the piano overwhelmed the other instruments. I would not make too much of this, hence the parentheses.)
The opening movement was urgent and exciting but not overdriven. The slow movement began with an alluring piano solo, but when the strings entered! It was a transcendentally lovely moment. The scherzo was light and fleet - and, yes, fairylike - whereas the finale, a rhapsodic rondo, built to a big finish to end the evening in style.
The piano trio may be the string quartet's neglected sibling, but the Gryphon Trio triumphantly demonstrate that such an attitude is entirely unjust.
A most engaging evening.
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