San Francisco Classical Voice

The Scherzo was carried out with uninhibited brashness and abandon. Pressler's opening chords in the slow passacaglia rang out like funeral bells. When Hope and Meneses added their soaring melodic lines, the passacaglia unfolded as the first genuinely and profoundly sad movement in this Trio, a creation of infinite beauty. The Jewish-sounding, dance-like finale is somewhat puzzling. Neither Shostakovich nor Sollertinsky was Jewish (despite the Columbia Artists Management's reference in the program notes to Ivan Ivanovich Sollertinsky's supposedly Jewish heritage).

There may possibly be two reasons why Shostakovich turned to Jewish folklore at that particular time. In the early 1940s. Shostakovich was working on the opera of his student Veniamin Fleyshman, Rothshild's Violin. At the beginning of the war in 1941 (for the Soviet Union, World War II started later than for the rest of Europe), Fleyshman volunteered for the front lines and was killed soon thereafter. Shostakovich decided to complete Fleyshman's unfinished opera, which he did in 1944. The second possible reason might have been that the outbreak of the war was accompanied by a sharp rise of anti-Semitism in the USSR. Shostakovich could not challenge this development openly, despite his acute aversion to anti-Semitism and to the new government policy towards the Jews. But he did what he could to buck the trend: he began composing works with clearly identifiable Jewish traits.

Beaux Arts' rendition of the finale was so highly charged that in fortissimo the musicians were way past the point of caring about the quality of the sound they made. It was all about raw, unbridled, and all-engulfing emotions, and their approach was absolutely compelling. There was one point, nevertheless, on which I could not agree with the violinist Daniel Hope. At the beginning of the finale, the pizzicato melody played by the violin includes a repeated high E. The editions of the Trio vary, some indicating an open string, other merely suggesting accents. In both recorded performances involving the composer at the piano, two different violinists, Dmitry Tsiganov and David Oistrach, both play that E on an open string. Hope chose to play it fingered, on a closed string, thus bringing the timbre of the E in line with the adjacent melodic notes.

When I asked Hope why he decided to play it fingered, he explained that it sounded much stronger that way. Indeed, the open, un-fingered E does not sound as strong as the fingered E, and it does protrude quite noticeably from the melodic line. But, in my view, an open E has a different, and, in a way, more powerful impact. Every time this double ping is heard, its awkward, artless vulnerability strikes the listener like a painful grimace.

The Shostakovich was preceded by Beethoven's Variations on "Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu," Op. 121a. In spite of the late opus number and the publishing date, the Variations were written much earlier in Beethoven's life, perhaps as early as 1803. The original tune was taken from a popular 1794 Viennese Singspiel by Wenzel Müller. In 1816, Beethoven offered this work for publication, saying that the Variations "are among my early works, but are not among those that should be discarded." Coming from someone who was not known for his humility, the composer's description did not convey a strong endorsement. And he was correct. It is a clever, witty, and, at times, nicely sentimental piece, but it is hardly a masterpiece. Pressler, Hope, and Meneses, however, nearly turned it into such. Switching masterfully from levity to soulfulness, alternating between now quarrelsome, now comical, now tender exchanges between the instruments, Beaux Arts delivered the Variations with exceptional grace and refinement.

The second half of the program was devoted to Schubert's splendid Piano Trio in B-flat major, Op. 99. This Trio received an affectionate and beguilingly exquisite treatment from Beaux Arts. Phrases flowed effortlessly. Pressler's piano rivaled the strings with singing warmth and melodic suppleness. The Scherzo came out improbably delicate and translucent in its Mendelssohnian lightness. To demonstrate this parallel the artists played the Scherzo from Mendelssohn's D-minor Trio as the first encore. Their second encore was a movement from Dvorák's "Dumky."

After the concert, Menahem Pressler attributed the success of their performance to the UCSC Recital Hall, stating that it was the finest hall in the country. He explained that the musicians could hear themselves perfectly and that the Recital Hall "beautified their sound." That might be true, but, at the same time, a concert hall does not turn an average group into a first-rate ensemble. The Beaux Arts Trio is a gem, and the UCSC Recital Hall merely underlined this rare quality.