New Zealand Ethel Smyth, Joan Tower, Eva Bedggood, Fanny Mendelssohn: NZTrio (Amalia Hall [violin], Ashley Brown [cello], Somi Kim [piano]). Old Library, Whangarei, New Zealand, 19.10.2024. (PSe)
Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) – Trio in D minor
Joan Tower (1938-) – Trio Cavany
Eva Bedggood (2003-) – Ukiyo 浮世 – The Floating World
Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847) – Trio in D minor, Op. 11
The New Zealand Trio was founded in 2002. By 2009, when I first heard them, they had ‘streamlined’ the name to NZTrio, properly retaining its capitals (except in their logo) but ruthlessly excising spaces. Come 2017, the winds of change were blowing (review here). In 2020, the ‘storm’ had abated, leaving NZTrio with only its cellist unchanged. However, one other thing persists: NZTrio remains the doyen of Kiwi piano trios.
NZTrio’s programme was entitled ‘Triptych 3: Untamed Hope’. I have managed to neither fathom nor divine, nor even find an explanation of this, though the ‘untamed hope’ presumably relates to the fortunes of the composers who, you may have noticed, are all women.
Ethel Smyth was a rebel from the outset, defying and defeating her military father to pursue a musical career, in her late teens already rubbing shoulders with giants of the Late Romantic. Her Trio in D minor (1880) was clearly influenced by this milieu, which I hold as a major plus-point. As NZTrio started playing, I was immediately taken by the lush Romanticism; moreover, as the music became active, my ear was caught by the quirky ‘edge’ to the phrasing and the counterpoint giving all three instruments ‘equal opportunities’. Again, the first big climax felt jaggedly harsh. This was music strongly characterised, uncompromising, offset by affecting reflective moments, which NZTrio projected with meticulous attention to detail and sensitivity to mood.
The Andante opened on solo piano, rather dainty, even prim. Yet, as the strings entered, I could feel its kinship with the foregoing Allegro and soon there was a sprightly ‘march’ decorated with delicate hints of ‘Happy Birthday to You’. Smyth constantly rings the changes, and NZTrio’s easy sliding from one to the next of this seamlessly ‘natural’ progression minimised any risk of flagging interest. NZTrio gave the presto con brio marking of the Scherzo its full due: this movement was an absolute riot – notes skimming, hammering, rattling against one another. Even in the more flowing Trio section, the stressful Scherzo’s shadow was never entirely absent. Picking up almost from where the Scherzo left off, the final Allegro vivace had the tenor of a cavalcade of the preceding movements, expanding and bursting with ideas. There was intrigue enough to compel listeners to further investigation.
Next up was Joan Tower’s Trio Cavany (2007); in case you are wondering, ‘Cavany’ derives from its commissioners’ home states: Ca = California, Va = Virginia, NY = New York. Tower wrote this Trio when she was ‘merely’ 69 (now 85, she still devotes every afternoon to composing and fills her spare time with teaching). Tower’s own description is nominal: ‘… one movement, about 18 mins., features all three instruments in solo and in combination.’ In mood it ranges widely, from remote and lonely to savagely pugnacious. The work apparently evolves from a three-note cell, at one point, early on, slyly alluding to Bartók, at another bordering on impressionism, but nowhere spilling into good humour.
Yet, the music is gripping, often wildly exciting – and very colourful, remarkably so in view of Tower’s disdaining any ‘special effects’. For witness, consider these snippets from my notebook: ‘remote’, ‘fractured phrases and harsh declamations’, ‘sort of whirring’, ‘huge, straining dissonances’, ‘desolate, drifting’, ‘twitchy pulse, seething with vitriol’. These and more were put in by Tower, and all winkled out and forged by NZTrio into an intense drama.
Kiwi Eva Bedggood, born only 21 years ago, is at the opposite pole of her career, yet already has her fingers in a bewildering variety of pies. Her Ukiyo 浮世 – The Floating World, first performed just a fortnight before this recital, is at the opposite pole from Trio Cavany. Responding to a Japanese proverb about ‘living for the moment, detached from the [turmoil] of life’, the composer invites us to take time out. The music does indeed seem to float, invoking a simple – and jolly nice – ‘folk tune’, bathed in a fascinating array of colours. Paradoxically, to make us feel ‘laid back’ and ‘chilled out’, NZTrio worked its collective socks off.
Fanny Mendelssohn was both unlucky and fortunate: unlucky for being born in an age when women were all ‘housewives’, and fortunate to have a younger brother and a husband both fully supportive of her ambitions. Her Piano Trio in D minor, written just a month before her death, was her last published work – the designation ‘Op.11’ measuring how little of her large œuvre was published in her lifetime. To all public intents, it is her swansong – and, by any standards, an imposing one.
The sweeping start was full-bodied, impassioned – and overwhelming. Somi Kim was fearless in the florid runs, over which the strings pumped vast layers of impressive sound, rendering climaxes stupendous. It is said that the best ‘music by an X’ is that which makes you forget that it is ‘by an X’ (insert your preferred neglected class) – and this vaulting music is such, especially as performed here. NZTrio poured their hearts and souls into it; I felt, increasingly, that they were digging every last nuance out of the score. The coda was remarkable for the virtuosity of the piano, both the writing and the playing.
The Andante espressivo is based on a theme of disarming simplicity, subjected to increasingly ingenious variations, the lead passing freely from one musician to the next. NZTrio handled it with great respect and evident affection. Its serene end led directly into the Lied, an apt title for a movement that NZTrio ‘sang’ with consummate skill and tenderness – and awareness of the allegretto marking.
The Allegro moderato finale’s opening piano ‘flourish’ swept us from ‘Bach-like’ to ‘parlour tune’ (Fanny referring to her ‘conflicting careers’?), the climax of which spills into a theme of a much livelier cast. These themes are artfully worked out in music of astonishing energy, ultimately expressing great joy, at simply being created – and recreated? NZTrio’s commendably no-holds-barred approach certainly impelled me to feeling that here ‘creativity’ is conquering ‘domesticity’. Thinking about it, wouldn’t that coincidentally make an apt epitaph?
Paul Serotsky