The billing for this concert announced “Cellist Alisa Weilerstein is joined by her great friends, violinist Stefan Jackiw and pianist Inon Barnatan, for an evening of vibrant chamber music”. The Southbank Centre’s curious online headline was “Alisa Weilerstein: Archduke Trio”. Given the solo career status of Weilerstein, and of the pianist and the violinist, this equated to what the 1970s rock and pop world called a supergroup. They have recorded Beethoven’s Triple Concerto together, so playing piano trios is no doubt a logical extension, even if not so often that they need a collective name.
They began with Rachmaninov’s Piano Trio no. 1 in G minor, Trio élégiaque, a single movement work which took here just twelve and a half minutes, without seeming rushed at any point. Indeed each player relished those lyrical moments in the sun (or maybe moonlight) which are its chief appeal. Weilerstein herself was centre stage, turned towards the audience, with line of sight to the violinist but not to the pianist behind her. This did not impair co-ordination, but did allow us to hear her splendid instrument, warm tone and poignant phrasing. Elsewhere the piano often dominates, not uncommon when just two strings combine with a modern grand piano. But pianist Inon Barnatan was sensitive to the need for balance. The players made this precocious ‘prentice work’ (Rachmaninov was 18 years old when he wrote it in four days) sound impressive enough to serve as a major figure announcing himself.
Ravel’s Piano Trio in A minor followed, performed no doubt to mark the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth and because the last century offered few greater works in this genre. At least one commentator suggests the score needs “three virtuosos” to play it, so a supergroup work. This is most evident in the second movement, whose title Pantoum refers to a Malaysian verse form popular with French poets, and filled with metrical complexity for all three players, with swift shifts between bowed and pizzicato string writing, use of harmonics, and different time signatures for piano and strings. This was accomplished well enough but looked hair-raising at times. The moment when the piano has a calm chorale-like melody over very busy string writing was splendidly effective.
Beethoven’s Piano Trio in B flat major “Archduke”, its name a reference to the composer’s patron and pupil, the Archduke Rudolf of Austria, was completed in 1811. The first movement was nobly done here, its progress steady and stately. The Scherzo was lively but light-hearted at times, with an especially growling fugato trio, and the Andante cantabile variations journeyed from rapt opening to rapturous close. The Finale is said to resemble a piano concerto, and Barnatan’s idiomatic playing reminded us of his prized Beethoven sonata cycle. Until then though the group sounded slightly less inside this classical idiom than they had in the 20th-century first half. But the Archduke is a work rich enough to take many approaches and this was surely superior to the melancholy premiere of the work in 1814. Beethoven’s deafness so affected his playing that after one more performance of his new trio, he never played in public again.
