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Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre |
(L to R) Alexandra Osborne, Kathryn Selby, Clancy Newman |
It’s an odd exercise, determining which part of this Selby & Friends program refers to a ‘living’ tradition. It could be referring to Elena Kats-Chernin‘s little tribute in her 2009 Variation on Schubert Trauerwalzer, which eventually spells out the tune she’s dealing with clearly just before the piece’s end. As far as I can judge, the rest of the afternoon’s material exemplified the tradition as it stands – more or less alive: Beethoven, Fanny Mendelssohn and Schubert himself in the shape of his Piano Trio No. 1 in B flat of 1827, written for the most part in the year before he died and which has become a favourite element in the programs of every ensemble peopled in this format. |
Partnering pianist Kathryn Selby in this enterprise were violinist Alexandra Osborne, adapting to the delights of a chamber musical interlude as a relief from her customary position as associate concertmaster with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra; and cellist Clancy Newman who seems to visit this country from his American home every year – a kind of permanent Friend. This particular combination made for a comfortable fit as all three musicians shared a common approach which the charitable might call resolute and the less kindly would characterise as aggressive. |
These musicians opened with Beethoven’s Piano Trio in G Major, the 10 Variations on Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu which seems to have been conceived in (roughly) 1803, published twenty-one years later, probably revised in the intervening years – which might explain how we end up with the hybrid in front of us. Commentators point to the uneven nature of the variations, although it’s hard to see what this means apart from giving everyone a set of guernseys in one form or another – solo, accompanied solos, duets, and a fugue to almost-end which jolts us into the final phase of the composer’s life when this form was making its mark in a good many scores. |
In this reading, the slow introduction came over as startlingly loud in the Studio’s environment, the fp and sf markings in my old Breitkopf and Hartel score striking enough to present sonorous threats. Which, of course, made the appearance of Wenzel Muller’s naive melody all the more striking. Matters continued in this forward-thrusting manner, notably in Variation IV where overlapping entries tended to make the upcoming sforzandi rather predictable. Still, the G minor Variation IX dominated by Selby’s keyboard proved a satisfyingly gentle, pseudo-serious interlude before the finale with its interposed double-fugue. |
Kats-Chernin’s small piece is based on the D. 365 No. 2 from the 36 Original Dances and she manages to keep the tune well disguised for much of its length, resisting the temptation to reveal the source melody until near the end of its five minutes’ length, along the lines of Brtitten’s guitar Nocturnal of 1963. For Kats-Chernin, the harmonic language seems more difficult than usual, although I think that may be due to lots of piano accretions that give the work an unexcpected aural complexity. Unfortunately, the piece passed by very quickly and settling in to a consideration of the performance proved impossible, except for the impeccable assurance of all concerned. |
Fanny Mendelssohn’s D minor Piano Trio of 1846-7 has interest for me mainly because of its author’s relationship to her brother; put beside his two inspired essays in the form, the four-square nature of its melodic and contrapuntal lay-out means that its performers have to work hard to give it gravity. Thoroughly acceptable in its emotional vigour, this score relied heavily on its interpreters to give it anything like the engrossing vitality of Felix’s striking predecessors in the form. |
As with her brother’s trios, the piano enjoys a good deal of the composer’s attention in this work and Selby relished her dominance in the outer Allegro segments, in particular the cadenza-like introduction to the finale, rich in rolling arpeggios and small rhetorical flourishes. But Osborne seized her opportunities, particularly in the main-melody assumption at bar 9 of the Andante espressivo; an eloquent duet in sixths with Newman. She also produced two soulful duet passages with Selby at the opening and close of the two-page Lied that the composer substituted for a scherzo. |
Later, in the final movement’s main pages, both strings offered worthy counter-weights to Selby’s busy triplet-and-semiquaver heavy part, taking to their exposures with both hands and working to sustain the same dynamic level as the tireless keyboard. At the end, you felt satisfied that you had experienced a worthy piece but also wondering how it would come across with players less involved in finding a level of drama that on this occasion enriched an agreable if none-too-exceptional construct. |
And so, post-interval, to the Schubert in B flat. This opens with an immensely appealing swagger and our players entered into its benign world with plenty of heft. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard Selby perform this score since her early touring days (starting in 1993 with the Macquarie Trio), but she has an unfailing mastery of its lengthy paragraphs and those heart-swelling surges of melody that ring out from every page of a score that, despite its length, seems to last just long enough. |
I missed the exposition’s repeat in the opening movement; a shame as those 111 bars can stand up to a re-hearing, unlike many another Classic/Romantic score where a return-to-taws means a five-minute (if you’re lucky) disconnect. Still, the musicians took their time over these mellifluous pages, introducing some decelerandi and heightening of pauses that took advantage of the large stretch of canvas that constitutes this movement. Further to this, you rarely experience the elation that Selby & Co. brought to the final 31 bars: that brilliantly contrived move from rumination to an A flat triple-forte triumph, then back to a muffled contentment. |
Later on, nothing shows the composer’s unparalleled responsiveness than the violin/cello duet from bar 13 of the Andante where the ‘melting moments’ sixths that Fanny Mendelssohn generated occur only in passing as the lines intersect and weave around each other. Here, both Osborne and Newman worked in a well-controlled partnership that persisted across pages dependent on the string voices for much of their expressiveness. And no: I’m not forgetting Selby’s firmly accomplished flourishes through the movement’s central strophes, between bars 49 and 79. |
In this reading, the performers gave a lean and mobile account of the Scherzo, the staccato passages delivered with control rather than punched into existence. As well, Osborne and Newman generated a fluent account of the gloriously lyrical Trio where Schubert supplies a wealth of passing thirds and sixths, enough to satisfy the euphony-seeking among us. |
And then the Finale that rounds off this masterpiece with consecutive episodes of brilliant creativity, none more touching than the move to 3/2 and D flat at bar 250 which sums up Schubert’s genius at shaping simplicity into supple and resourceful invention; revisiting this slightly at bar 370 for about 14 bars; then prefacing his Presto last page with a shift to G flat at bar 583: a moment of extraordinary beauty carried off here with the gentlest of approaches. It all made for an interpretation of this work that mirrored its pages’ innate humanity and faced us once again with an astonishing self-assurance from a composer fast approaching his deathbed. |
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