(Sergey Malov, Peter
Martens & Bryan Wallick)
Little known chamber music from Russia was played by three
outstanding instrumentalists. (Review by Michael Green)
Little known chamber music from Russia was played by three
outstanding instrumentalists at the latest concert of the Friends of Music at
the Durban Jewish Centre.
Any misgivings the audience might have had about the choice
of programme were quickly dispelled by the sheer quality of the performance by
the Trio Elegiaque.
Elegiac music is, by definition, sad; an elegy is a
lamentation, usually for someone who has recently died. The three works on the
programme, by Sergei Rachmaninoff, Dmitri Shostakovich and Pyotr Tchaikovsky,
were all written as tributes to friends. But their basic melancholy is tempered
by fluent melodies, strong rhythms and rich harmonies.
The performers were: Sergey Malov, violin, born in Russia and
now an internationalist who speaks six languages fluently; Peter Martens,
cello, born in Cape Town and now living in Stellenbosch; and Bryan Wallick,
piano, born in the United States and now living in Pretoria.
They opened with Rachmaninoff’s Trio elegiaque No. 1 in G minor,
composed in 1892 when the composer was 19. He wrote this as a tribute to
Tchaikovsky, who died a year later. The composition is remarkably mature, with
the sweeping melodies so typical of Rachmaninoff’s later works.
Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor provided a
striking contrast. It was written in 1944, during World War 2, and is dedicated
to a close friend who had died. It is strident, solemn and, in the final
movement, strongly melodic, with references to Jewish traditional music.
The playing was brilliant. Bryan Wallick is a virtuoso
pianist, Sergey Malov is an expressive violinist with an imposing technique,
and Peter Martens obtains a full rich tone from his cello. In combination they
produced a performance to remember.
Tchaikovsky dedicated his two-movement Piano Trio in A
minor, Op. 50, to the pianist Nikolai Rubinstein, who died in 1881. Rubinstein
once described Tchaikovsky’s B flat minor piano concerto, now perhaps the most
famous of all concertos, as worthless and unplayable. He later changed his mind
about it.
Tchaikovsky’s lyrical, passionate music is irresistible to
normal ears, and the Trio Elegiaque extracted full value from this big romantic
chamber work, much to the delight of the audience.
The prelude performer of the evening, supported by the
National Lotteries Commission, was Morgan Rowland, an 18-year-old flute player
from Wykeham Collegiate school in Pietermaritzburg.
Accompanied at the piano by Andrew Warburton, she displayed
an accurate, full tone as she played the beautiful Dance of the Blessed Spirits from Gluck’s opera Orpheus and Eurydice, and a sonata
movement by Paul Hindemith. - Michael Green
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