Grammar, Vocabulary and Other Musical Lessons
Trio Jean Paul mit Haydn, Schönberg und Brahmsvon BERNARD HOLLAND
11.10.2005
The luck of the draw has brought me to a lot of trio concerts in recent months but none quite as impressive as the Trio Jean Paul at the Frick Collection on Sunday afternoon. The topic of technique could be brought up and immediately dropped. So comfortable are these three Germans with their instruments that physical ability was quickly assumed and thereafter went unnoticed.
More gratifying was the heartfelt yet scrupulous attention to European music's grammar and vocabulary. In Haydn, Schoenberg and Brahms, the trio - Ulf Schneider, the violinist; Martin Löhr, the cellist; and Eckart Heiligers, the pianist - showed listeners the ways in which harmonic change stretches time and orders phrases, and how silence can be "listened to," creating a tension of its own.
The Haydn Trio's key was F-sharp minor, emblematic of the composer's midcareer dive into the 18th century's cultural movement of Storm and Stress. If the slow movement sounded familiar - and suspiciously symphonic - it is another example of a busy composer borrowing from himself.
Schoenberg's "Verklärte Nacht" also turns up in different places, as both a string sextet and an orchestra piece. Here it appeared in Edward Steuermann's reduction for three players, one that heavily taxes the piano to somehow replicate the original's swimming string textures.
The Schoenberg as a trio gives us the same notes but a different work. The piano part makes half-hidden detail clear; on the other hand, it can make it a bit too clear.
Brahms's early B-major Trio (as he first wrote it, not the revision) was music almost too big for this small space. Big is not the word - huge or immense might be better - and the Jean Paul players unashamedly held nothing back. These are acutely musical and sophisticated players, and they deserve an audience. They did not deserve the electronic whistle coming from somewhere inside the hall that sang alongside the Brahms after intermission.
