The Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, and Sting, special guest – Wednesday, September 14, 2011, the 92nd St. Y
W.A.Mozart – Piano Trio in B-flat major, k.502
Stanley Silverman – Piano trio no. 2, “Réveille” (world première)
L. v. Beethoven – Piano Trio in B-flat major, op.97, “Archduke”
 

“Good morning, New York! You are waking up to the sound of WQXR FM, 105.9… ” Am I dreaming? Ah, but a quick glance out my window is enough to reassure me, as the Hudson river and the New Jersey skyline tell me I am certainly not. And wait until I tell you about the sun. The sunrises…ooooooh! The sunsets, aaaaah – and in between, sheer bliss. My subconscious is making sure I sleep as little as possible, every minute one is not wide awake in New York City is a minute wasted.

My head is spinning with the prospect of all the concerts and operas I’ll get to go to. Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Y, Grace Rainey Rogers, the Met… the literature is piling up on my desk and just reading the pages and pages of programs for the 2011-2012 season gives me goose bumps.

I lost no time and have already bought concert tickets well into the season – I have tickets for next May, this has never happened to me before. And this is just the beginning. I only managed to do the Y, and some Carnegie Hall, but I still have the others to go. I will deplete my bank account, but can you think of a better way of ruining yourself?

 

So yesterday was the first concert I had tickets for, at the 92nd St. Y, and I couldn’t have been more delighted that it was for the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson trio, as magnificent artists as they are wonderful people, especially Jaime whom I have met several times and who never fails to recognize me, which definitely rubs my amateur musician’s ego the right way.

Never mind that it was a “tribute” event, a kind of concert that rarely lives up to the intention, I wanted to hear the Mozart and Beethoven trios announced. Never mind that in between the two was a world première of a composition written especially in memoriam of a gentleman who lost his life in the 9/11 attacks. World premières always scare me – I much prefer world cinq-cent-quatrevingt-treizièmes, or even mille-trois-cent-soixante-sixièmes… Oboe d’Amore, my faithful companion, says I am not adventurous. Well yes, I prefer to swim in familiar waters, although I sometimes throw myself into unknown depths and come out wonderfully refreshed – the contemporary Latvian composer Peteris Vasks and the Finn Aulis Sallinen are among some who have stunned me. And never mind that Sting was to join the trio in this piece. Yes, I do mean Sting-the-rock-star. And yes, I had the worst apprehension about this. And no, I couldn’t imagine what kind of collaboration this could be. Now I know and will tell you all about it.

But first a word about the surroundings and the people. Geography makes for very diverse concert crowds. The heavily enthusiastic Berliners (they swallow anything, as I witnessed to my great surprise), the supremely blasé and indifferent French (whose only thought seems to be to scramble away, as soon as the last note is played, to catch le dernier metro), the mostly ignorant and boisterous Italians (who clap after almost every single movement, especially when it ends in a crescendo), the refined and sensitive Spaniards (yes, concert-goers in Madrid have a great feeling for good quality), to name only a few. Last night, as the Y is a Jewish stronghold, the aspect was distinctly Mittel-Europa-New-Yorker, but not the usual sharp, knowledgeable and extremely critical New York audience, as the great majority seemed only to be there for the tribute, not for the music. In fact, after the intermission, the tribute part being over, half had already gone home.

Still, before going into the heart of the matter, a word about chamber music. Please forgive my verbosity, but it has been an awfully long time since I have had the chance to listen and to write. Surprisingly, Rome was a sort of musical wasteland, despite the beautiful Renzo Piano hall it boasts, and I completely lacked the energy and the enthusiasm to cross the city to witness half-hearted performances – with a few exceptions which I did write about.

A very dear friend of mine, the violist of my quartet in Mexico, loved to say that three or four soloists rarely make up a trio or a quartet. He meant that chamber music is a very special form of music, arguably the most difficult of all, and that it is hard to improvise a chamber group on the spur of the moment. Chamber music is an intimate form of musical conversation and, as such, requires a great closeness between the participants. Thus, the longer the group has been playing together, the better, and the great trios and quartets, as were the Beaux-Arts and the Budapest, for example, could never be surpassed by soloists thrown together for a concert or two, however extraordinary they might be. I used to think this was a profound insight and an unassailable truth. Not any more. Over the years, I have heard sublime interpretations by occasional trios, like Argerich-Kremer and Maisky or Ax-Laredo-Yo Yo Ma. Or quartets, with Stern playing with the latter three, for instance. True, they play or played together often, and were probably very close intellectually and musically. Yesterday’s concert only confirmed my newly found wisdom.

Yes, I am very sorry to say that I was rather disappointed by the performance, and to my great chagrin, I have to admit that what came to my mind is that the trio is stale. I will risk a diagnosis: they have just played together too much and too long. Everything is perfectly in place, the entente is complete, the interpretation is well rounded and precise, the musicians are all excellent (well, I would have a few reservations about Robinson, but that might just might be my old bitchy instinct pushing me to be catty about a good looking woman who can play the cello), and the final result is sadly boring.

To be honest, I did like the Mozart B flat trio, played with delicacy and elegance, especially by Kalichstein who reminded me of Gieseking in his prime, especially of a recording of Mozart sonatas and fantasias which I had on vinyl and must find again on CD. Jaime’s beautiful musicality was marred by a few astonishing technical slips, which made him seem like a violin version of Alfred Cortot. Robinson’s tone is lackluster, but that was less obvious in the Mozart than in the Beethoven.

After the Mozart, the comic relief. In the introduction to the concert, it was said that the tribute, Stanley Silverman’s Piano trio no. 2, was not meant to be a sad one. But the piece turned out to be downright funny as it was essentially a pastiche of several perfectly recognizable styles and composers. It started out sounding like a caricature of avant-garde music, with all the usual twists and quirks, pizzicati, col legnos, and dissonances. Then it went through successive imitations of Piazzolla, Lecuona and the Buenavista Social Club, veering suddenly into Fauré, Villa Lobos and Copland, then back to Argentina and Cuba. I also detected some Paganini in the violin part, perfectly fitting. Not to forget Purcell, or maybe Dowland, which was where Sting came in, singing words by no less than Shakespeare himself! In short, a stylistic and chronological hodgepodge which Victor Borge or the Hoffnung Festival would have been proud of. So much so, that I believe it can only have been intentional, in which case, chapeau, very well done! I had never heard Mr. Sting before so I don’t know whether he was just out of sorts or whether he is that way, but the raspy monotone added nothing to the show.

It was, at any rate, very reckless to sandwich Mr. Silverman’s divertissement between a sublime Mozart trio and Beethoven’s majestic Archduke. The anachronistic interlude was the only reason I could imagine for the alternately tame and messy Beethoven we then heard. I had trouble believing what I was hearing, how could these fine musicians deliver such a square and uninteresting interpretation of this monumentally beautiful trio? All the qualities shown in the Mozart were completely gone. Kalichstein was often heavy-handed and even sloppy, Laredo seemed totally out of it and Robinson’s shallow tone was even more obvious than before. The slow movements were tedious and the fast ones muddled. They flunked what I consider to be the great test of a good interpretation, the capacity to rivet the audience. A good performance makes me sit on the edge of my chair, never wanting to let go. When my mind starts wandering to the phone calls I forgot to return and the toilet paper I forgot to buy, there is definitely something wrong. I can only hope this was just a bad hair day for the trio.