19.3.2009
If this had been a 'musical journey', as the
announcement suggested, we could have conveniently done most of it with
the help of the Wiener Linien. (Only for the single Shostakovich
piece we'd needed to get into an airplane, but that wouldn't have even
affected everybody in the audience, for shamefully enough, many seats
remained empty after the break, when the 20th century music was played.)
The introductory talk, which gave an informative, if rather conventional
interpretation sketch for the works on the program, didn't make anything
of the traveling metaphor either. It referred to several cases where
grievous experiences might have inspired the composers, so if it had to
be that metaphor, calling it an 'emotional' journey would have been a
better fit.
On the program were Mozart's Trio KV 502, Brahms's Trio
op. 8 (in the second, shorter version), and Shostakovich's Trio
op. 67. (All of them piano trios, which means they're for piano, violin
and cello.) The strength of
Trio Elegiaque is its carefully tempered, finely blended sound and great
teamwork. This was put to most effect in the Brahms Trio. Slightly
less convincing was the Shostakovich piece. It features several rough and
violent passages that were played forcefully, but with a noticeable loss of
the fine attunement that seems otherwise to be the mark of this ensemble.
There were two brilliantly played encores, both of them humorous pieces
by Rodion Shchedrin.
