Concerts 8 and 9: Schubert and more Schubert!

The Vienna Piano Trio was back in town for our Music and Beyond festival, and the 8th and 9th times I made use of my festival pass this year were to hear them play Schubert. It is good not only to hear these three friends again but to see them again, too, so well do they co-operate on stage. On Monday, July 10th, Chris came with me to Dominion Chalmers United Church for the afternoon concert, because he had a day off work. The young man doing the introductions before the performers came on stage warned us that we'd "only hear one song" [sic] during this concert, which goes to show to what extent iTunes has infiltrated our culture. It was rather a long song, though: Schubert's Opus 100, the E-flat major trio in four movements, some 50 minutes long, so Chris felt he had got his money's worth from his entrance ticket. The allegro moderato movement at the end (not quite a sonata form movement and not quite a rondo) cleverly reprises the main theme from the second movement ...

which makes me realise by how far this composer was ahead of his time, and reminds me yet again how much I love this tune! Schubert himself must have loved it. It was among the last of his own compositions that he heard performed before his death, by the way.

The performers in the video clip above ARE the Vienna Piano Trio! I was thrilled to find this online, as a momento of our experience.

The following day, they performed in another afternoon concert at Dominion Chalmers, and once again it was An Afternoon of Schubert. Chris was stuck at work this time, so I went alone, making sure I had a seat where I could watch the facial expressions of Stefan Mendl, the ultra-musical pianist and leader / founder of the group, who feels every note intensely. I wonder if one of his ancestors centuries ago was also an ancestor of Mendelssohn, but maybe that's too far-fetched a thought. I noticed that he hardly ever looks up at his sheet music, only having it there for occasional reference, although he always employs a page turner.

There were three items on the programme this time, the first two being sonatas rather than trios, the first being the Arpeggione for cello and piano (D.821) followed by the Fantasy in C for violin and piano (D.934). Matthias Gredler is also worth watching in action, and as for the music, Schubert never ceases to awe me. "Genius = surprises and caprice," I noted in the margin, remembering how my music teacher at school (i.e. my dad) had once got me to write an essay on Humour in Music, and thinking how I could perhaps have used the Arpeggione as an example in it. There were Mozartian touches in the Adagio movement. The Fantasy, seven sections long, appealed to me too with its third section quoting one of Schubert's Lieder, Sei mir gegrüßt, developing it into exciting variations. David McCarroll from California, seems to have become thoroughly Viennese since he became the indispensible third member of the Vienna Piano Trio, replacing their former violinist.

After the intermission the whole trio returned to play Schubert's Piano Trio No. 1 in B-flat, op. 99. Here, Schubert composed yet another unforgettable second movement derived from a melody on the cello: 10 minutes of bliss, once more.

Such concerts have a physical effect on me, propelling me so easily along on my walk home afterwards that I feel as if I'm floating.

Arensky, Beethoven and Schubert

As a Festival Pass holder at this year's Music and Beyond in Ottawa, I have 15 concerts to report! It feels like a long time since the first one I attended at midday on July 5th, a concert of music by the Russian composer Arensky, who died in 1906. "Tragic death," I scribbled on the programme, but forgot why. (According to the Wikipedia Arensky died of TB at the age of 44, in Finland.)

Each of the two pieces was written in memory of another musician, the first, a quartet for violin, viola and (unusually) two cellos, in three movements (Op. 35, No.2), composed as a tribute to Tchaikovsky. The music being balanced towards a low pitch made it sound funereal in places, the first movement like a sacred chant. "Deep Russian sonority," I noted. The middle movement was a series of variations on a theme by Tchaikovsky, Russian folksy in style, and the Finale began in a low register again, on all four instruments, andante sostenuto, leading to a fugue.

The second piece, Arensky's first piano trio in four movements, Op. 32, written in memory of a cellist friend, was somewhat lighter by comparison, with a romantic, Dvorak-like opening movement with a fast, bouncy Scherzo and a muted Elegia following.

I jumped on a bus and went straight from that concert to the 2pm concert at Southminster United: the Auryn Quartet playing Beethoven and Schubert, not to be missed! They played Beethoven's C-sharp minor Opus 131, with no breaks between the movements. I'm not sure whether the Ottawa audience is quite ready for Beethoven's Late Quartets -- some of the audience seemed to find it a hard slog -- but knowing what to expect, I was swept along with this monumental music. After the intermission, the German group performed Schubert's G major quartet D. 887, and that was Beethovenesque too, with its sudden major-minor changes, and delighted me with a long and lovely melody on the cello in the slow movement. The Auryn Quartet is adept at pianissimo playing: that's what distinguishes the professionals from the amateurs. These men have been playing together for more than 30 years, still the original members of the quartet, like a marriage. They are currently based in Detmold, Germany.