Stars come out with Mutter and friends at Carnegie Hall
Some chamber music fans prefer the communal, no-stars ethos of an organization like the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Others like the interplay of big personalities when famous soloists get together to make music.
Listeners who were introduced to Beethoven’s “Archduke” Trio through the classic recording by Jascha Heifetz, Arthur Rubinstein and Emanuel Feuermann could be expected to salivate at the prospect of hearing the piece performed in Carnegie Hall by three present-day stars: violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, pianist Yefim Bronfman (recovering from the hand injury that caused the cancellation of his Carnegie recital last month), and the fast-rising young cellist Pablo Ferrández.
In the event Tuesday night, it turned out to be the two senior players who trimmed their sails a bit, while their younger colleague let his warm, round cello tone bloom in the hall—not a bad thing, given the instrument’s acoustic disadvantage in a space that large.
If ever a piece invited the star treatment, it’s the “Archduke,” with its assertive opening for the piano alone and crisp dialogue thereafter. But Bronfman seemed to leave his concerto voice at home and take a more submissive stance, even playing the striding theme a little out of time, lowering the movement’s energy. Similarly, the string players tended to sway in their seats rather than sit up and attack their entrances. But the group rallied for the twisty development section and some smart staccato dialogue.
Impish humor reigned in the light-footed scherzo, Mutter heightening it with a little scratch in her staccato, then digging in for the moaning, chromatic trio. The Andante cantabile glowed with string tone, and the three players highlighted the freshness and ingenuity of its four variations and coda. The pianist again sounded a little tentative leading off the cheeky finale, but gained energy as the three instruments started mixing it up, and the fast-and-faster coda made an exhilarating finish.
Tchaikovsky was a model to his Russian successors in many ways, but the most distinctive—and the most Russian—thing he bequeathed to them was the genre of the “elegiac trio,” which has been taken up by generations of composers from Rachmaninoff to Shostakovich to Schnittke.
Overcoming skepticism that piano and strings would sound good together, Tchaikovsky composed his only Piano Trio as a memorial to the pianist and conductor Nikolai Rubinstein. (Tuesday’s event was Carnegie’s annual Isaac Stern Memorial Concert, remembering the violinist who, besides leading the campaign to save Carnegie Hall in the 1960s, was himself a notable trio player with Eugene Istomin and Leonard Rose.) Perhaps commemorating his and Rubinstein’s work on (and clashes over) his piano concertos, Tchaikovsky wrote a brawny piano part for this trio, with the strings often countering it in forte octaves.
On Tuesday, the players shed any Classical-era inhibitions they might have felt in the Beethoven, and pushed for maximum drama in the “Pezzo elegaico” that opened the work. The keynote was passionate grief, with only a slow march episode and a dwindling coda to sound a truly “elegiac” note.
The variations finale seemed at first to have left grief behind, with its folksy major-key theme, variations in music-box, waltz and mazurka style, and Mutter’s violin vying with Ferrández’s cello for full tone. The last variation-coda seemed headed for a fast, loud, piano-driven finish, but went diminuendo at the last minute, leaving only the grief-stricken cello, pianissimo, at the end. The players conveyed these raw, unpredictable Tchaikovsky emotions with all the skill and passion of big-time soloists—maybe not an advantage in a Haydn trio, but definitely one here.
Carnegie Hall presents the Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble performing works by Briccialdi, Puccini, Rota, Wolf and Verdi, 2 p.m. Sunday in Weill Recital Hall. carnegiehall.org
