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Dave Dunnet Community Theatre, Oak Bay High School
October 20, 2018
Despite the almost endless possible combinations of instruments, the overwhelming majority of chamber music is for the same few types of ensemble, with the string quartet out in front by some considerable margin.
Trailing along in something close to last place is the clarinet-cello-piano combination. And, although Wikipedia lists around 100 composers who have written for the combination (omitting arrangements), only two of them are accounted among the Pantheon of the Great: Beethoven and Brahms.
Each of the pair composed for the combination just once: Beethoven near the beginning of his career, Brahms after he had "retired" from his.
Saturday's concert — appropriately — opened with the early Beethoven and closed with the late Brahms.
The Johannes Trio gave a marvellous performance of Beethoven's rarely-heard Op.11: he, presumably in order to broaden the potential market for the work, as in the late 1790s the clarinet was still a relatively new instrument, made a transcription which gives the clarinet part, almost completely unchanged, to a violin, hence there is debate as to whether or not it should truly be counted as one of his piano trios.
It may be hindsight (or whatever the aural equivalent is) but, for me, and certainly in this performance, the trio conveyed the sense of a great composer just beginning to flex his muscles. There was a slightly forceful elegance in the first movement, which I greatly enjoyed and which seem completely in keeping with the young (he was still in his twenties) composer. The development section had a distinct air of mystery and I very much liked the elbow-in-the-ribs jollity of the false ending.
The slow movement opened with Rosanna Butterfield's eloquent statement of the theme and the movement as a whole was poised and delectable.
The finale was based upon the aria "Pria ch'io l'impegno" ("Before what I intended") from the opera L'Amor Marinaro by one Joseph Weigl; there is uncertainty as to whether the theme was suggested to Beethoven by his publisher, Artaria, or by Joseph Beer, the Bohemian clarinetist for whom the work was probably written. It does appear that Beethoven was not aware of the source of the melody when he wrote the trio and that he was less than amused when he discovered its origin.
No matter what the facts, the perky theme is subjected to a series of nine playful and frequently delightful variations. It may not be profound (who am I kidding, it certainly is not profound) music but it is charming and highly entertaining — at least when played as well and persuasively as on this occasion.
At the end of 1890 the fifty-seven-year-old Brahms announced that he had retired from composition.
The best-laid plans, however, "gang aft agley" and it was only a few months later, in March 1891 on a visit to Meiningen, that Brahms was inspired by the playing of Richard Mühlfeld, principal clarinet with the Court Orchestra (which Brahms had conducted in the premiere of his fourth symphony less than four years previously). Within fairly short order Brahms had composed no fewer than four works for Mühfeld, to whom he variously referred as "Fräulein Klarinette", "Meine Prima donna" and "The nightingale of the orchestra".
The first of those four works was the trio, Op.114, which closed Saturday's programme proper.
Perhaps it is a feature of advancing age, but the trio is a work which has increasingly insinuated itself into my affections in the last decade or so. And this performance fulfilled all my expectations and then proceeded to surpass them.
The first movement brought forth sumptuous tone colours from all three musicians and balance between them was all but immaculate. There was, as there should be, a distinct tinge of nostalgia, but also the sense that Brahms was not yet done with music, not yet "calm of mind, all passion spent".
The adagio which followed was quite achingly beautiful and wistful; I was reminded just how remarkable this music truly is, while simultaneously feeling that, while I might have already outlived Brahms, "at least", as I wrote in my notebook, "I'm not that old".
The intermezzo was beguiling and simply delicious, while the unsettled finale seemed to show a Brahms who, if not raging against the dying of the light, nevertheless felt that death, if not a tragedy, was at the very least (to misquote Oscar Wilde) a damned nuisance.
Exquisite.
I will readily admit that for me a little Astor Piazzolla goes quite a long way: partly, perhaps, because the rhythm of the tango, which informs most of his music, can only hold my attention for a limited time.
Having said which, I must also admit to being quite bowled over by Le Grand Tango, with which Butterfield and Jannie Burdeti closed the first half of the programme.
Rhythmic vitality was the watchword of the outer sections of the piece, abounding in energy and almost earthy in places, both players seeming to delight in the frequent unconventionality of the music.
The central section was lyrical and almost plaintive in nature but fairly quickly yielded to the exuberance of the returning tango. I strongly suspect that if I had not plugged my car into the charging station in the parking lot, I could still have got a charge from the energy being produced on stage.
Dazzling.
For an encore, the trio gave us a suitably bitter-sweet rendition of Charlie Chaplin's "Smile", leading me to wonder, even as I enjoyed their charming playing, whether anyone else, aside from myself, finds Chaplin's music far more enjoyable than his comedy.
A marvellous evening.
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