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concert review: Beaux Arts Trio
Apr. 19th, 2008 10:26 amFor my sins I went to le petit Trianon to hear the Beaux Arts Trio on what they're calling their farewell tour, which I guess means that pianist Menahem Pressler is retiring. He's an ancient gnome who's been with the group since its founding fifty-mumble years ago, so this is reasonable, but listening to him play you can't imagine why he'd want to stop. The other players are younger. Last time I heard the trio they didn't seem to mesh together very well. This time they did, to put it mildly, so I'm even more sorry that they're breaking up.
The program featured Schubert's two renowned piano trios from 1827, generally known as Op. 99 and Op. 100. (Few of Schubert's other works are known by opus numbers, not that many of them have any. I don't pretend to understand why these are the exception.) Even Op. 99, which I find a hard nut to crack, was a blissful, enchanting experience, but Op. 100, which I like much more, was just beyond wonderful. Fortunately this score gives plenty of opportunity for the players to do what they do best: cellist Antonio Meneses plays lyrical melodies with fine legato tone; and violinist Daniel Hope, with carefully controlled lightness of bowing (and likewise with pizzicato), chirps out tiny gossamer notes of accompaniment or rhythm that probably wouldn't be heard in any other hall; while Pressler pours cascades of sparkling notes over them from his position behind. Somewhere in the second movement I realized that this was one of the great performances, and the finale matched it.
Between the Schuberts they played a tiny work newly-commissioned from Hungarian composer György Kurtág. Kurtág, a friend of Pressler's, is 82 years old and writes pontillistic serialism as if Anton Webern were still alive. Granted that the piece's hushed sonorities were well-chosen for these players' strengths, and granted that it didn't detain us for more than 4 minutes even played through twice, its presence in this context still made me wonder what point there is in listening to such stuff in a world which still contains Schubert.
Two encores, a perfectly characteristic scherzo by Haydn (I think from Hob XV/18, but I'll have to check up on this) and the andante from Dvořák's Dumky Trio.
The audience should have drifted out on air, but that didn't happen. A woman tripped on the outside steps and fell flat on her face with a sickening thud. When last seen by me, she was being tended to by a few other people while two or three men stood around talking to 911 on their cell phones, each having to repeat over and over again the exact location of this well-addressed downtown spot. Stop fiddling around and just send the ambulance, why don'tcha?
The program featured Schubert's two renowned piano trios from 1827, generally known as Op. 99 and Op. 100. (Few of Schubert's other works are known by opus numbers, not that many of them have any. I don't pretend to understand why these are the exception.) Even Op. 99, which I find a hard nut to crack, was a blissful, enchanting experience, but Op. 100, which I like much more, was just beyond wonderful. Fortunately this score gives plenty of opportunity for the players to do what they do best: cellist Antonio Meneses plays lyrical melodies with fine legato tone; and violinist Daniel Hope, with carefully controlled lightness of bowing (and likewise with pizzicato), chirps out tiny gossamer notes of accompaniment or rhythm that probably wouldn't be heard in any other hall; while Pressler pours cascades of sparkling notes over them from his position behind. Somewhere in the second movement I realized that this was one of the great performances, and the finale matched it.
Between the Schuberts they played a tiny work newly-commissioned from Hungarian composer György Kurtág. Kurtág, a friend of Pressler's, is 82 years old and writes pontillistic serialism as if Anton Webern were still alive. Granted that the piece's hushed sonorities were well-chosen for these players' strengths, and granted that it didn't detain us for more than 4 minutes even played through twice, its presence in this context still made me wonder what point there is in listening to such stuff in a world which still contains Schubert.
Two encores, a perfectly characteristic scherzo by Haydn (I think from Hob XV/18, but I'll have to check up on this) and the andante from Dvořák's Dumky Trio.
The audience should have drifted out on air, but that didn't happen. A woman tripped on the outside steps and fell flat on her face with a sickening thud. When last seen by me, she was being tended to by a few other people while two or three men stood around talking to 911 on their cell phones, each having to repeat over and over again the exact location of this well-addressed downtown spot. Stop fiddling around and just send the ambulance, why don'tcha?
