With their delicate winsomeness, Beethoven's String Trios were not meant to be performed in such a splendid concert hall as Baden-Baden's 2500-seater Festspielhaus, but that doesn't mean that the works did not get an immaculate and beautiful airing at this concert. The interaction between Bashmet
and Harrell – two great musicians – and their reactions to the impeccably tasteful interpretation of Anne-Sophie Mutter were for me the most fascinating features of this recital.
The combination of these three players allowed them to maintain
a uniformly delicate flautato sound throughout, without making any
concessions for the size of the hall and the virtually packed house.
Every one of these consummate performers has long ago assured for themselves widespread respect and admiration. Being powerful and highly articulate personalities, even when they are not on the concert platform or in the recording studio, they have all staked out their own battlegrounds and need not be concerned with finding engagements or selling their recordings.
Anne-Sophie Mutter does an immense amount of little-publicised work to promote and educate new talent. Her task to acquaint the largest possible audiences with Mozart, Beethoven and now Brahms's Violin-Piano Sonatas, in literally hundreds of recitals, is a major undertaking. In her forthcoming tour all over the US, in one single week she will give six performances of the three Brahms Sonatas.
Now approaching middle age, Yuri Bashmet has not lost anything from his deserved status as arguably the finest and most exciting viola player of this or any other century, one who has infused life into this somewhat underestimated instrument. His work in passing on his unique qualities to a new generation and his tireless touring with his Moscow Soloists have never slowed down. In February alone he had seventeen concert engagements in two continents. Playing without any concession to platform mannerisms, he provided a wonderfully mellow basis to fill acoustic gaps and in his solo passages he displayed that sound and phrasing that makes him so unique in chamber music performances. When playing unisono with the violin or the cello, one could be only amazed how he could add a new colour and yet perfect match the phrasing and bowing patterns of his partners.
Lynn Harrell can look back on a life of single-minded dedication to
the art of playing the cello; there isn't an aspect of this art to which
he would not have contributed a valuable and unique service.
In these Beethoven trios it is the cello that has many of the loveliest tunes,
and Harrell's gentle and wistful interpretation found the right
balance between simple sentimentality and the already lurking depth
of emotions. Some of the solos, like the Polacca in the Serenade, demand a certain amount of
acrobatics, giving a foretaste of the fiendish difficulties in the
cello parts of the middle and late quartets, but in Harrell's hands they were
just like playing with pearls. Modest and cheerfully benign, unostentatious and yet digging deeply
below the staves of a score, he is my ideal of a great performer and
teacher. It is through watching him that I learned lovingly to embrace
my cello and experience how a cello responds to this love (even if it
is not a Montagnana!).
These works, preceding the giant monument of Beethoven's String Quartets, do not yet tax the intellect of listeners or performers; nor do they involve the passion and compassion which even the Op.18 Quartets already engender. They are just a delight to listen to or to play. However, in his brilliant orchestration and by giving equal weight and importance to all three instruments, Beethoven already hints at what he would be capable of composing only a year or two later. He derived hardly any income from their publication, as they were performed during his lifetime mostly in the palaces of his wealthy sponsors, and it is sad to read his cringingly obsequious letter in tormented French to the Graf von Browne, a wealthy courtier in the Court of the Tsar, thanking him for his financial support and dedicating Op.9 to his 'benefactor'.
The playful way in which Beethoven mixes soulful sentimentalities with the spirited gallops of his Scherzos and Finales, always marked Presto, was fully enjoyed by the performers. One felt in some of these whirlwind exchanges almost as if the three players were playing ping-pong on a triangular table. The excellent acoustics of the hall allowed this giant airspace to be filled with three pianississimo passages wafting through the air. Barely whispered lacework in the Finale of Op.9, No. 3, came through clearly and with precision, and the crashing chords in the Marcia of the Serenade sounded like a trio of brass instruments – an effect clearly desired by Beethoven. The Presto of Op 9, No. 1, performed as an encore at dazzling speed, and yet with clockwork precision, ended an inspiring evening.
I left the concert elated by the pleasure and joy the performers allowed a grateful audience (which could have filled the Wigmore Hall at least four times over) to share, and by my own love for these works, which I have played and hope still to play, innumerable times.