READ TODAY'S STORIES AND E-EDITION SUBSCRIBE |  CONTACT US |  SIGN IN

Print story only Print story with comments Email Twitter Facebook Pinterest
REVIEW: The N-E-W Trio
Published: 10/4/2009 10:58 PM
Last Modified: 10/4/2009 10:58 PM

The N-E-W Trio managed to do something quite extraordinary at its concert Sunday afternoon at the Tulsa PAC. This relatively young chamber music ensemble made time almost stand still.
The trio concluded its Tulsa debut — the opening concert of Chamber Music Tulsa’s 2009-2010 season — with Schubert’s Piano Trio in E-flat Major, D. 929. This is a major work of the repertoire in every way. The program notes refer to it being one of Schubert’s works notable for its “heavenly length” — a polite way of saying that this composition can seem to last an eternity.
The N-E-W Trio performed a slightly edited version of the piece, which still took a shade more than 45 minutes to complete. Yet it certainly didn’t seem that long to experience.
One reason is Schubert’s brilliance at crafting and transforming melodies, so that the piece sounded as if it were leading the listener down a circuitous path, past scenery that even if it seemed familiar was never exactly the same as one remembered.
Another reason is the energy and passion that the members of the N-E-W Trio — violinist Andrew Wan, pianist Julio Elizalde and cellist Gal Nyska — brought to their performance. The trio’s sense of ensemble and balance, the inner drive they gave the music, the expressiveness of their playing (especially the wonderfully smooth, singing tone of Nyska’s cello) never faltered through this piece’s epic length.
And all that combined to make the Schubert E-flat trio seem to fly by — a long journey made brief by the exemplary company of those with whom one traveled.
The afternoon opened with the Trio No. 1 by Leon Kirchner, a work composed in 1954. Kirchner studied under Schoenberg, but while he embraced a great deal of his mentors ideas, Kirchner did not pursue the atonality of the 12-tone system for which Schoenberg was famous — or notorious, depending on one’s tolerance for that style.
Kirchner died last month, and Elizalde in some opening remarks said the group knew of the composer’s failing health, and so made it a point to program his first Piano Trio as much as possible during this season in tribute to him. Elizalde’s characterization of the piece as “one of the greatest American contributions to chamber music” probably struck most as a bit of hyperbole, but it did live up to Elizalde’s other description, of the piece being a fine representation of the “spontaneity and passion” of Kirchner’s music.
While the music had the percussion, fragmented quality that one almost expects from mid-20th century music, there was also in this piece an intriguingly wry sense of humor, as if Kirchner was deliberately upsetting people’s expectations of what a piano trio should sound like. For one thing, a sense of balance and proportion in the sound — always a tricky thing with the piano trio format — was achieved by an almost democratic division of material among the three instruments, so that no one voice “got in the way” of the others.
And it also upset the expectations people might have of mid-20th century music, as the second half contained moments of oddly affecting tenderness, and almost conventional melodic material, and concluded with a dramatic, even triumphant blast of chords.
In the center of the program was the Schumann Trio for Piano and Strings in G Minor, Op. 110. This piece called for the most subdued playing from the piano, from its “in media res” beginning through the long conversation between the violin and cello that makes up the bulk of the second movement, with the piano trying gently but insistently to interrupt. The third movement, which is marked as “Vigorous, with humor,” might have been lacking in humor but certainly was vigorous, as was the finale which gave pianist Elizalde the chance to really let his instrument speak up, though never at the expense of the trio’s ever-sharp sense of ensemble.



Reader Comments


To post comments on tulsaworld.com, you must be an active Tulsa World print or digital subscriber and signed into your account.

ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

Subscribe to this blog


Archive

 
James D. Watts Jr's Blog Archive:

2/2013  1/2013  12/2012  11/2012  10/2012  9/2012  
8/2012  7/2012  6/2012  5/2012  4/2012  3/2012  
2/2012  1/2012  12/2011  11/2011  10/2011  9/2011  
8/2011  7/2011  6/2011  5/2011  4/2011  3/2011  
2/2011  1/2011  12/2010  11/2010  10/2010  9/2010  
8/2010  7/2010  6/2010  5/2010  4/2010  3/2010  
2/2010  1/2010  12/2009  11/2009  10/2009  9/2009  
8/2009  7/2009  6/2009  5/2009  4/2009  3/2009  
2/2009  1/2009  12/2008  11/2008  10/2008  9/2008  
8/2008  7/2008  6/2008  5/2008  4/2008  








Home | Contact Us | Search | Subscribe | Customer Service | About | Advertise | Privacy
Copyright © 2013, World Publishing Co. All rights reserved.