concert review: Beaux Arts Trio
Apr. 7th, 2007 09:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacIt's pronounced something like "Bozart", so I wonder why they didn't play anything by Meaux Art.
Anyway. This is one of the most venerable ensembles in chamber music, still with one of its original members: Menahem Pressler, a little gnome of a man who walked out to the stage of le petit Trianon flanked by his two younger, taller string-playing colleagues, has been pianist in this outfit for 52 years!
And when he sat down and began playing the soft rolling chords of Schubert's Notturno in E-flat, it was evident that the old man has still got it, though "it" included a lot of wrong notes. I've heard aged but legendary pianists before (Rudolf Serkin comes strongly to mind), and it's the spirit, man, the spirit.
The Beaux Arts are known for old-fashioned plushly dignified renditions of the classics, but while cellist Antonio Meneses grooved with Pressler, nobody told violinist Daniel Hope, who plays in the crisper, more strident style of younger performers. He didn't always fit in.
Schubert came off superbly, soft and pillowy, but there might have been something lacking in Beethoven's Archduke Trio. For a work of the composer's "heroic" period, the Archduke is exceedingly quiet and even withdrawn. Beethoven hadn't quite overcome the 18th-century idea that a piano trio is a work for piano with string commentary on the side, and while there can be compelling beauty in this work, this wasn't quite it.
On the other hand the trio completely defied its reputation with Shostakovich's Op. 67. This took a while to get going, but the Scherzo was as vehement from all three players as could be hoped for, and it just kept going from there.
For an encore we were offered, Pressler said, a piece by "a composer whose name you will not know." This turned out to be Hummel. Hey, who did he think he was talking to? Hummel is not forgotten around here.
Anyway. This is one of the most venerable ensembles in chamber music, still with one of its original members: Menahem Pressler, a little gnome of a man who walked out to the stage of le petit Trianon flanked by his two younger, taller string-playing colleagues, has been pianist in this outfit for 52 years!
And when he sat down and began playing the soft rolling chords of Schubert's Notturno in E-flat, it was evident that the old man has still got it, though "it" included a lot of wrong notes. I've heard aged but legendary pianists before (Rudolf Serkin comes strongly to mind), and it's the spirit, man, the spirit.
The Beaux Arts are known for old-fashioned plushly dignified renditions of the classics, but while cellist Antonio Meneses grooved with Pressler, nobody told violinist Daniel Hope, who plays in the crisper, more strident style of younger performers. He didn't always fit in.
Schubert came off superbly, soft and pillowy, but there might have been something lacking in Beethoven's Archduke Trio. For a work of the composer's "heroic" period, the Archduke is exceedingly quiet and even withdrawn. Beethoven hadn't quite overcome the 18th-century idea that a piano trio is a work for piano with string commentary on the side, and while there can be compelling beauty in this work, this wasn't quite it.
On the other hand the trio completely defied its reputation with Shostakovich's Op. 67. This took a while to get going, but the Scherzo was as vehement from all three players as could be hoped for, and it just kept going from there.
For an encore we were offered, Pressler said, a piece by "a composer whose name you will not know." This turned out to be Hummel. Hey, who did he think he was talking to? Hummel is not forgotten around here.
