All three of these
performances derive from the same concert,
given in June 1963 at the 16th
Aldeburgh Festival. Britten had got
to know both Menuhin and Gendron in
1945 when Britten made his British Council
tours. Though Britten’s association
with Menuhin is the better known it
was Britten who played the piano at
Gendron’s London debut at the Wigmore
Hall. He also considered but never wrote
a Suite for the cellist and so their
collaboration was firmly established
by the time of this concert.
This is a noteworthy
example of Britten’s harmonious working
relationship with two exalted string
colleague partners though not one without
some passing problems. Many centre on
Menuhin who was not on top form and
takes some time fully to warm up. In
the Beethoven Ghost trio his tone inclines
to shrillness and the conjunction of
this with Gendron’s warmth and splendid
intonation can be unsettling. Britten
is rhythmically crisp but the effect,
not least in the first movement, can
be rather no-nonsense. I admired the
sense of desolate simplicity that they
bring to the slow movement; Britten’s
sensitively weighted chording proving
ever illuminating (as indeed it is to
hear him at all in Beethoven). They
do respond in parts quite graphically
to the unease, Gendron being exceptionally
tonally nuanced and expressivo in his
phrasing – and it allows one the chance
to wonder why, post-Marechal and pre-Tortelier,
he was so consistently overshadowed
by French contemporaries Fournier and
Navarra. An attractive finale is slightly
let down by a certain phrasal tentativeness
as if, for all their rehearsal and experience
of each others playing, they were waiting
for someone else to lead.
One associates Britten
much more of course with Mozart and
he proves himself yet again here with
some deliciously tripping playing in
the Andante, perky but not frivolous,
affectionate but not cloying, mobile
but not too fast for precision of articulation.
Once more Menuhin is steely and phrases
rather stickily in the first movement
but the finale works well – lithe and
winning. For many it’s the Bridge that
will prove the most alluring. This is
a work Britten knew well. Back in 1931
when the composer gave the young Britten
an inscribed copy of it the latter wrote
that it was "a most interesting
and beautiful work" and he performed
it with his trio in 1936 and 1947 (on
the last occasion with two members of
the Zorian Trio). This 1963 represents
his last performance of the Trio, which
he valued as highly as any comparable
work of its time but in which he had
the perception that "a weakness
is the restriction of the harmonic and
melodic language." These things
sound entirely subordinate in a performance
such as this. The strings’ grim insistence
and Britten’s treble-flecked piano add
colour and determined austerity in equal
measure, no less than Gendron’s sweeping
phrasing and Menuhin’s concentrated,
once more steeled tone, not always inappropriate
here. The pizzicato passage in the Molto
Allegro second movement is well marshalled
and the sense of an almost salacious
rhythm is excellently conveyed as is
Britten’s gradual unfolding of the elliptical
piano writing in the slow movement –
beautifully suggestive. There are some
ensemble slips in the finale and Menuhin’s
intonation does come under pressure
but Britten’s stern bass pointing is
notable and the colouristic drama and
increasingly confident rhetoric of the
movement is splendidly conveyed. The
moments of intimate reprieve toward
the end – trills and withdrawn keening
– are part of a comprehensively knowledgeable
and successful performance.
As a recital one would,
objectively speaking, have to rate this
patchily played. But time and circumstance
lend significance to it and most particularly
to Britten’s Last Will and Testament
playing of the work, by his teacher,
that he’d known intimately for over
thirty years. For that alone this disc
is a valuable artefact.
Jonathan Woolf
BBC LEGENDS BBCL 4134-2 [74.24] 