Musica Viva. Adelaide Town Hall. 9 Nov 2016
Trio Dali comprises three 20-something soon-to-be-superstars of the world of chamber music. Jack Liebeck (violin), Christian-Pierre La Marca (cello) (“Crispy” to his friends, apparently) and Amandine Savary (piano) play with courage and sublime musicality.
Throughout the performance Liebeck and La Marca exchanged telling glances at each other: one looked at the other as if to seek confirmation they were ‘on track’ with what the other expected, or anticipated, and of course they always were. Meanwhile Savary, who formed the apex of the musical triangle, sat upstage of them at the Steinway and weighed into the non-verbal discussion with authoritative phrasing and influential dynamics. The three worked beautifully together, and the sum of the parts was greater than the parts themselves.
La Marca demonstrated beautifully graceful long lines in the adagio cantabile of Beethoven’s Piano Trio in E flat, op 1, no 1, and with Liebeck produced remarkable drone-like sounds in the scherzo. Savary was liberal in her pedaling throughout, but the sound was always clean. Liebeck injected unexpected humor and ‘attitude’ into the finale, and at the end the trio was saluted with generous and deserved applause from the enthusiastic audience.
Australian composer Roger Smalley’s Piano Trio was composed in 1991 and, according to the composer, invokes material from a Chopin Mazurka. It is an adventurous (modern) composition with ambivalent emotional content. The first movement has you on edge with its denatured sliding intervals from the strings that are neatly brought together by the piano. The dramatic scherzo second movement led into a vehement third movement full of pathos and anguish that was well explored by Trio Dali. This all gave way to a more contemplative final section that gently drifted to conclusion. The interval buzz was that the Smalley was interesting, but the Beethoven “did it” for the audience. But the best, at least in the mind of this reviewer, was left for after the interval.
Chausson’s Piano Trio in G minor, Op 3 – like the Beethoven – is an early career composition, and Trio Dali handled it with deftness, assurance, and vivacity. Where Trio Dali might have searched for a perfect expression of the emotional content of the Smalley, with the Chausson they found it and laid it bare. They found the inherent melancholy in the third movement but crucially they also exposed its sense of hope and promise. Savary beautifully executed the complex sections that required her to intertwine her hands as she accompanied the yearning violin of Liebeck.
Musica Viva have again graced the imposing Adelaide Town Hall stage with a wonderful chamber program delivered by inspiring and talented young artists.
Kym Clayton
When: 9 Nov
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
