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| Haveron, Selby and Clerici |
Reviewed by Jennifer Gall
ONE of the strange ironies of the current
Covid situation is that a Chamber Music concert presented online can be an
extraordinarily intimate experience for a very small number of people, perhaps
more closely reflecting the composer’s original intent – except for that one
all important fact – the music in our homes is mediated by a machine and the
internet.
Kathy
Selby has seized the challenge of presenting her 2020 series in a world without
concert halls and created an impressive musical experience for her subscribers.
The concert, Let’s Get Personal, was recorded at Sydney Grammar School with a
very quick turnaround time. It is a skilful production because it combines the
familiarity of Kathy’s spoken introduction with an uninterrupted concert
performance, supported by a delightful, informative conversation between the
three performers: Kathy Selby, piano, Andrew Haveron, violin and Umberto
Clerici, cello. As listeners, we had the best of all worlds by hearing
beautiful performances, then the immediacy of hearing an animated and
spontaneous interrogation of the program by the musicians themselves. The
filming was unobtrusive and panned smoothly between single musicians and the
ensemble, just as the eye would move in a more traditional concert.
With
the joyous opening Mozart Piano Trio No 3 in B flat major, K502, there was an
immediate lifting of the spirits. Composed in 1786, an important and eventful
year for Mozart in his career trajectory, the Trio balances youthful exuberance
with the confidence of a composer who consummately provides each instrument
with an assertive voice in the musical conversation. The three movements, Allegro,
Larghetto, Allegretto are neatly contrasted to offer ample time
for anticipation, contemplation and resolution. In this performance there was
unmistakable warmth in the combined sound of three friends conversing. In the Larghetto,
the instruments interwove three distinctive sinuous and lovely melodic threads,
the tempo perfectly calculated to offer a slow - but not too slow – unfolding
of the thematic ideas. The final, delicate Allegretto was a perfect
conclusion of this sparkling work.
In
listening to Beethoven’s Piano Trio in E flat major, Op.1 No. I was mindful of
Umberto Clerici’s observation that Beethoven wrote to challenge the established
forms of his era, always composing music for the audiences of the future,
anticipating an era wherein dramatic changes of thematic and dynamic direction
would be the spice that listeners were expecting in a concert. Beethoven’s Op.1
fitted very well with the earlier work by Mozart, and one could imagine that
both composers would have enjoyed hearing their music played in this sequence.
I enjoyed the sparring of violin and cello – the particular tone of these two
venerable instruments speaking to each other was proof that the musicians were
emotionally and technically invested in producing such fine music.
Dvořák’s PianoTrio No 4 in E
minor, Op. 90, the ‘Dumky’, is a familiar work to many Chamber Music lovers.
Andrew Haveron explained it as the composition into which Dvořák poured his
complete devotion to the language, traditional music and cultural history of
the Czech people. The form incorporates 6 ‘dances’ with variations, leading the
audience through a kaleidoscope of passionate musical sound, creating rich pictures
for the imagination as a heart-piercing violin melodiy is next enfolded in a
tender, soaring cello melody, with the piano providing the underlying pulsing
heartbeat.
We are indeed lucky at this
time to hear the performance presented by Kathy Selby. She has grasped the
technology possibilities available and created a lifeline to connect audiences
with chamber music until we are able to meet again in more traditional concert
venues.