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CHAMBER MUSIC REVIEW
Schubert To Schoenberg (Truncated)
January 19, 2001
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By Jerry Kuderna
On its face, the program announced for Ensemble Phoenix at Old First Church on Friday offered works ranging from the unusual to the irresistible. In the first category were three seldom-heard works from the first half of the 19th century: Mendelssohn's infrequently played Piano Trio in C Minor, Schubert's early Trio in B-flat (for strings), and Schumann's wonderful Piano Quartet. Even further off the beaten path was Arnold Schoenberg's String Trio Op. 45. This last is such a rarity that wild horses could not have kept me away. However, what you see is not always what you get.
Confusingly, the printed program listed three movements of the Mendelssohn Trio, but the Phoenix Ensemble, pausing after the applause following the third movement, played the fourth movement, to even greater applause. It seemed like a bonus. Pianist Lisa Spector gave an engaging and brilliant performance of the piano part that blended well with the lovely tonal qualities of violinist Robin Mayforth and cellist Sarah Fiene.
Schoenberg once said, "The old romanticism is dead, long live the new." Before the string trios, Sarah Fiene, the cellist and organizer of Ensemble Phoenix, read a long essay that referred to the Schubert and Schoenberg about to be played as the bookends of "romanticism." It was an interesting challenge to the audience to find a connection between one of Schubert's most Mozartean works and one of Schoenberg's most structurally complex ones. We were asked to refrain from applauding between the two works "because of their brevity." This made no sense — Opus 45 is a major work. But I acceded to her request, as a bow to Schoenberg's Society for Private Musical Performances, where applause was banned entirely.
The Schubert Trio is in one movement, an Allegro that stands very nicely by itself. Conceivably, the other movements were lost or abandoned. Nonetheless, it was a lovely example of Schubert's early melodic gifts. Joining Fiene and Mayforth was violist Dawn Harms. Their trio played with wit and warmth.
It would be hard to imagine a greater contrast than that between the Schubert and the music that followed. The Schoenberg Trio is a work filled with constantly changing textures, alternating pizzicati, col legno, sul ponticello effects , and a proliferation of harmonics. For all its difficulty, however, there is no doubting its power and validity. It can be gripping from first note to last. Unfortunately, we heard the last notes but not the first. In fact, the entire first two-thirds of the trio were omitted. The piece opened with trills and widely leaping harmonics in the cello, which is indeed the way the first movement begins. But it actually turned out to be the third and final section, a literal recapitulation (unusual for Schoenberg). But at this point in the work the composer is constantly shortening and abbreviating his original ideas. Everything before has to be heard, the many variations absorbed, in order for this "recapitulation" to make proper sense. The single most important referent, the 12-tone series that is played in unison earlier, at the end of Part II, was not heard in this abbreviated performance and therefore could not have the proper effect when played for the last time by the violin in the final bars. Because Schoenberg's failing eyesight in his last years compelled him to use special music paper with large staves, the trio obviously cost him a great effort. Such talented musicians could not have played it in this truncated way if they really understood the greatness of the work and its human significance as Schoenberg's response to World War II. Afterwards, the players told me that they would play the complete work at a subsequent concert (when they have learned all of it). I will be there to hear them. (Jerry Kuderna is a pianist who teaches at Diablo Valley College.) ©2001 Jerry Kuderna, all rights reserved |