***** (5 stars)
“Deeply Moving”
Emma Baird, Helen La Grand and Anna Michels met as postgraduate students at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. I for one am profoundly grateful that they decided to join together to form the Lark Trio: today’s lunchtime performance of Tchaikovsky’s piano trio moved me deeply, and I don’t think I was the only member of the audience to be so affected.
Tchaikovsky was determined that he would never write a piano trio, said Anna in her introduction to the performance. However, the death in 1881 of his close friend and mentor, the accomplished pianist Nikolai Rubinstein, deeply affected the composer. During the following winter he wrote this trio, subtitled à la mémoire d’un grand artiste [to the memory of a great artist] and oh my goodness, it’s an utterly incredible work.
The first of its two movements sounded to me like a lament for a lost lover. Joy and sorrow intertwined in a journey through memories full of emotion, passionate outbursts of grief and anger, overwhelming deep sadness, moments of calm resignation and acceptance, solemn lamenting, fiery, tempestuous outbursts, small gleams of glorious sunshine and happy memories, and restrained moments made all the more poignant because of that very restraint. Three strong, individual voices sang out in brilliant melodies, singly and together, taking turns in leading and supporting each other, pouring out a torrent of feelings that swept us all along until the final slow funeral march gradually sank into silence.
How to follow that? With a theme and variations which some think might portray incidents from the life of Rubinstein – there’s certainly a huge amount of variety of mood, character, and feeling in this movement. A simple melody, full of feeling and with extraordinary rhythmical character is developed into a string of variations which give each instrument a chance to show off. The piano begins, having great fun while the strings play pizzicato; a noble melody, reminiscent of gypsy music, is passed from violin to cello; the piano dances in its upper register while the strings provide a drone bass; a rumbunctious waltz is tossed around by all three; the piano plays monstrous chords reminiscent of Mussorgsky’s Great Gates of Kiyev from Pictures from an exhibition; a delicate muted string line is tossed between the two players while the piano ripples with arpeggios, giving us a moment of calm before a mazurka, which is both lively and very formal, played with almost military precision, allows all three musicians the opportunity really to show off. A wonderfully lyrical serenade, throbbing with passion, led into a fast, fiery and furious finale – risoluto e con fuoco –which had all three players obviously enjoying themselves, dancing around, now frenziedly, now nimbly, building and relaxing the tension through all the keys you can think of, scampering towards what seemed must be a magnificent climax but…
The music was celebrating what must have been a glorious life – and now we remember the beloved is dead. The music comes to a stark and solemn ending, a funeral march with sombre strings and dry, detached chords on a piano which slowly falters to silence.
We all sit, so deeply moved it’s impossible to break that silence – and then erupt into tumultuous applause, richly deserved. What an amazing work; what superbly talented musicians; what a memorable lunchtime!
Please please please may we have the joy and privilege of hearing the Lark Trio again at the Brunton VERY SOON.
Bite-sized concerts at the Brunton: Lark Piano Trio, Tchaikovsky piano trio in A minor Op 50, Northesk Parish Church, Run Ended
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