| Site review by Geohominid May 4, 2008
|
Performance: Sonics (S/MC): / |
A disk of Czech 'Sturm und Drang' chamber music: three piano trios to add to the seminal ones by Dvorak and Martinu.
Smetana, father of Bohemian musical nationalism, wrote mainly for piano and orchestra, and his G minor piano trio Op. 15 (1855) is one of only a few chamber works from the master. It was written after the death of his 3-year old daughter, 'to the memory of an angel', hence the minor key. Its passionate and turbulent first subject tears away with all three instruments. The stress is relieved by a tender rocking tune in the major, sung by the cello, which skips away to a triumphant affirmation. The ensuing academic-sounding fugal development is sometimes quite martial. The Guarneri Trio's playing in this movement is strongly characterised and very con amore, with a rich depth of string tone and colourful pianism.
The unusual second movement is a combined scherzo and trio, with alternating fast and slow sections, whose fantasy the Trio explore with a playful lyricism and beguiling warmth. The finale is a fiery rondo, full of nervous energy, and the Trio here give us an exciting ride. Their committed advocacy makes our neglect of Smetana's trio all the more astonishing; it is a very fine piece and ranks high in the relatively slim ranks of worthwhile Romantic piano trios.
Joseph Suk's Piano Trio in C minor Op. 2 may look like an earlier work, but in fact he returned to it many times until he found its final form in 1906, the year after his beloved wife Otila died. This sad event provoked a radical change in his career, as he moved from a Dvorakian nationalism to expressionism in large-scale works such as Asrael. The first movement is indeed expressionist in its ardent ebbing and flowing of taut ideas, but the slow movement is perhaps the finest of the three, with a highly unusual habanera-like rhythm underpinning a gracious lilting song, given a winsome and intimate performance by the Guarneri. They are also relaxed but sparkling in the bubbling Vivace rondo, which harks back again to Dvorak, Suk's mentor and father-in-law. Suk's Elegy, in its piano trio version, is a funeral poem in honour of a prominent Czech writer, and is played with warm tone and beautiful phrasing by the Trio.
The Guarneri then pitch us headlong into the Piano Trio by Lubos Fiser (1935-1999), a one-movement cyclical work characterised by high tension. It is basically tonal, harmonically adventurous and has recognisable leitmotifs, but is often wild and throws the strings and piano into almost violent opposition. The Guarneri respond thrillingly to Fiser's challenges with virtuosic cadenza-like passages for each instrument and pin-point precision of ensemble. After this often searing but riveting experience, the music subsides and finds tranquility in the key of C major, letting us down gently (and breathlessly).
The Praga DSD recording is very good indeed, with a moderately resonant location giving an appropriate ambient bloom. It has fine and convincing details of instrumental timbres, especially from the violin and cello, where one gets a palpable sensation of rosin, bow and strings. A small point is that the string players are placed rather far to left and right, compared with the piano's somewhat more backward stance. Certainly this made the most of antiphonic discussions between the string players, and the always tricky balancing of piano trios was overcome by having the piano a little distanced from them in the mix.
This is an apt and powerful combination of works, all of which deserve to be heard more often, particularly the Smetana trio. Recommended.
|
Copyright © 2008 John Miller and SA-CD.net
|
|
