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concert review: Trio Solisti
Feb. 25th, 2007 10:50 pmWhile Ellen DeGeneres was hosting the Oscars, I was watching a woman who looks a little like her play the cello. She was a very good cellist, with a very expressive touch through the light textures of Schubert's Op. 99 Trio, but she kept grimacing and squinting as if in intestinal agony.
With a violinist and pianist, this group was called Trio Solisti and played with more maturity and depth than some of the other piano trios I've heard recently. Even better than the Schubert was Rachmaninoff's little-known early G-minor trio in one movement, almost translucent at points but with a weight and solidity that suggested Brahms, not the next composer normally to come to mind when hearing Rachmaninoff.
And after intermission, sure enough, Brahms's B-major trio, Op. 8. Not one of my favorite Brahms works, but a sure-handed, energetic performance with a unified, heavy solid sound. The pianist rumbled away in good Brahmsian style, the violinist played low and close-in to the others, and the cellist kept grimacing.
For an encore, Vittorio Monti's Czardas, an old Fritz Kreisler showpiece. But Kreisler is unlikely to have played it as this violinist did. A tall, willowy woman with a goofy smile, wearing a silk gown, she wandered through the audience during the expressive cadenza passages, leaning her violin down in their faces, sitting down next to them for a minute, sitting on their laps.
Very clever. Don't ever do it again.
With a violinist and pianist, this group was called Trio Solisti and played with more maturity and depth than some of the other piano trios I've heard recently. Even better than the Schubert was Rachmaninoff's little-known early G-minor trio in one movement, almost translucent at points but with a weight and solidity that suggested Brahms, not the next composer normally to come to mind when hearing Rachmaninoff.
And after intermission, sure enough, Brahms's B-major trio, Op. 8. Not one of my favorite Brahms works, but a sure-handed, energetic performance with a unified, heavy solid sound. The pianist rumbled away in good Brahmsian style, the violinist played low and close-in to the others, and the cellist kept grimacing.
For an encore, Vittorio Monti's Czardas, an old Fritz Kreisler showpiece. But Kreisler is unlikely to have played it as this violinist did. A tall, willowy woman with a goofy smile, wearing a silk gown, she wandered through the audience during the expressive cadenza passages, leaning her violin down in their faces, sitting down next to them for a minute, sitting on their laps.
Very clever. Don't ever do it again.
