The Radio 3 Monday Lunchtime
Concerts series from the Wigmore Hall has
produced some memorable concerts in the 2003/4
season, but this one was surely the crowning
glory so far. No surprise that tickets were
hard to come by as the Beaux Arts Trio, no
less, gave aristocratic yet fresh accounts
of two chamber music gems.
The current line-up of the
Beaux Arts is the venerable Menahem Pressler
(piano); Daniel Hope (violin) and Antonio
Meneses (cello). Hope is the most recent recruit,
having taken his place as a permanent member
in 2002. The combination of youthful enthusiasm
and fine experience is a powerful one indeed.
The very name of the ensemble is enough to
inspire veneration in all but the most hardened
music-lover.
Beethoven’s Op. 11 of 1798,
which began the concert, was originally a
Trio for clarinet, cello and piano. Yet when
it was published it came with an alternative,
idiomatically written part for violin and
it was in this form (straightforward piano
trio) that it was played on this occasion.
This is very youthful Beethoven.
Contrasts are deliberately larger than life,
and the Beaux Arts Trio made sure that the
verve of the opening played off the ensuing
melting lyricism perfectly. The juxtaposition
of the two set up a tension that ran throughout
the first movement, underpinning the delightful,
easy invention. Interplay of violin and cello
was miraculous (and how witty were Pressler’s
scales!). Only some tricky ornaments revealed
that he is not as agile as perhaps he used
to be. Yet how marvellous was his pedalling
in the Adagio (to pedal this well is the fruit
of long experience); and how intimate, also,
the violin and cello dialogues.
The delightful, airy theme
that forms the material for the finale’s variations
(a comic trio from Joseph Weigl’s opera L’amor
marinaro, a hit in Vienna in 1797) was
given ‘the works’, taking in along the way
a disembodied, whispered ‘minore’; scampering
violin scales; a catchy dotted-rhythm variation
and a beautifully shaded coda. This was far,
far more than a mere warm-up.
Dvorák’s Piano Trio
in E minor of 1890/1, the ‘Dumky’ was given
a performance it would surely be hard to better.
The single most memorable aspect of this sequence
of six dumky (plural of ‘dumka’) was the sense
of fantasy it projected. Just as Dvorák’s
imagination was in free-fall when he wrote
it, so the Beaux Arts Trio seemed to be caught
on the wing. The prototypical first movement
(Lento – maestoso - Allegro) set the scene
with a broad, sweeping gesture preceding a
jubilant dance. True, Pressler might not be
as nimble as perhaps he once was in the coda,
but the way he weighted his chords was a thing
of wonder. Cellist Antonio Meneses, too, seemed
to peak, especially in the more lamenting,
yearning phrases Dvorák gave him. The
opening of the third movement was positively
mesmeric, at first disembodied as Pressler’s
right hand gave out a melody in as rapt a
fashion as is imaginable. Contrasts within
the work were at times highlighted to great
effect, nowhere more than in the final movements
‘Lento maestoso’ against a ‘Vivace’. There
was never a doubt that Dvorák’s imagination
in this work is magnificent. And there was
no doubting, either, that the Beaux Arts Trio
matched that inspiration in kind.
Colin Clarke
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