Mastering the Trio

As an exchange student in France, I used to listen to Schubert’s chamber music while setting the table for dinner. “Turn it off!” my host mother finally demanded one day. “We don’t live in a candy store!”

For some listeners, the yearning lyricism of the romantic composers can be painfully sweet, if not unbearably sentimental. Good music teachers often warn their students that romantic pieces are the most difficult to perform because their melodies are so unabashedly pleasing. If played with too much enthusiasm, Schubert can go from heartfelt to mawkish, embarrassing classicists everywhere. But handled conservatively, an emotionally moving piece can feel equally stilted and bland.

Leave it to the Beaux Arts Trio to get this fine balance just right. This superb ensemble, founded by pianist Menahem Pressler, performed trios by Schumann and Schubert to an astounded audience at the New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall on March 16 as part of FleetBoston’s Celebrity Series. It’s not often that a chamber group achieves “celebrity” status, but in the case of the Beaux Arts such success is entirely deserved. Despite juggling members in recent years (violinist Daniel Hope is so new he’s not even in the press photos), they maintain a vigorous touring and recording schedule, as likely to be heard in big city concert halls as on airplane radio stations or taped-for-television soirees.

The concert comprised two well-chosen pieces, Schumann’s Trio No. I in D minor, a relentlessly shape-shifting work, and Schubert’s Trio in E-flat Major, Opus 100, which was Schumann’s inspiration. Both works demand virtuoso performances from each player, but provide ample opportunities for the trio to showcase their famous ability to cooperate.

Whereas the tendency in Schumann might be to exaggerate every rapid diminuendo and surprising modulation, the trio handled unexpected turns of phrase with elegant subtlety. Besides maintaining a sweet, round tone throughout the tumultuous first movement, violinist Hope reined in his exuberance so as not to drown out the lesser tunes allotted to the cello, played with gusto by Antonio Meneses. Meanwhile, Pressler, a shrunken old man seemingly twice the age of his fellow players, continually reared his head from side to side to check on the progress of the strings, despite the fact that neither violinist nor cellist seemed to pay any attention to his paternal well-wishing.

Resisting the temptation for romantic indulgence, Pressler inaugurated the Schubert trio with Beethovenian stateliness, bringing out the authority of chords and arpeggios. But if the first movement felt somewhat restrained, the second movement, with its unforgettable, darksome melody, was played with less sense and more sensibility. In this famous movement, Schubert makes the most of few materials, building hundreds of bars on a single, two-note interval. The trio successfully differentiated every reiteration, varying their emotional colorings with exquisite care.

After rather thunderous ovations, the trio performed for two encores, the concert’s highlights. Dismissing Schubert’s sweetness, Pressler called the audience “back to earth” by playing the frenzied scherzo of Shostakovich’s second piano trio. After this outburst of energy, Pressler then returned listeners “back to heaven” with the slow movement of Beethoven’s Trio No. 11. Arguing for Beethoven’s status as a romantic, the trio played with some of the maudlin expressivity that the previous performances had lacked. If the applause were any indication, this self-referential in-joke was not lost on the audience.

It’s precisely this ability to engage listeners that makes the Beaux Arts Trio such a treat. For all their careful technique and studied interpretations, the atmosphere of their concerts remains as exciting and impromptu as the gatherings among friends at which these trios were originally performed.

music

Beaux Arts Trio

Menahem Pressler, Daniel Hope, Antonio Meneses

Jordan Hall

March 16