Extra

Longtime partners Joshua Bell on violin, Steven Isserliss on cello, and Jeremy Denk on piano were reunited Sunday, May 12 for a program of trios under the aegis of San Francisco Symphony at Davies Hall. Featured in this concert were Felix Mendelssohn’s Trio No. 1 in D minor, Opus 49, (1839); Dmitri Shostakovich’s Trio No. 2 in E minor, Opus 67 (1944); Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Trio élégiaque No. 1 in G minor (1892); and Maurice Ravel’s Trio in A minor (1914). Apart from Beethoven’s great “Ghost” and “Archduke” Trios, as well as Schubert’s E-flat Trio, this current program offered what might be called the cream of the crop in trio writing. 

Joshua Bell, Steven Isserliss, and Jeremy Denk are highly animated performers. Bell, who was seated on a bench, repeatedly leaned so far forward into his bowing that, at moments, I felt he might fly right off the bench. Isserliss, also seated, is notorious for waving his arms extravagantly, and in the second movement of the Ravel Trio, he waved his arms, bow in hand, as if he were conducting a particularly lush melody. Isserliss also is known for vigorous head shakes with his mop of silver, tightly ringed curls. As for Denk, he is given to much head lolling and repeated head swivels at right angles as if to catch a cue from what his partners are doing. All this motion from the musicians can, at times, both distract and detract from the music itself. But Bell, Isserliss, and Denk are such fine musicians, both individually and together, that their agitated mannerisms don’t often get in the way. 

Opening the concert was Mendelssohn’s Trio No. 1, a magisterial work that premiered in 1840. The first movement , marked Molto allegro e agitato, features lush Romantic melodies traded back and forth among the three instruments. The second movement, an Andante, opens with the piano, which introduces a lovely melody then taken up by the other instruments, including some pizzicato from the cello. A Scherzo then offers brilliant piano passages; and an exuberant Finale brings this work to a spirited conclusion. 

From the sunny optimism of Mendelssohn we now turned to the stark despair of Shostakovich. Despair was doubly on Shostakovich’s mind in 1944 when he wrote his Trio, No. 2, for his beloved mentor Ivan Ivanovich Sollertinsky died at age 41 in February 1944, and Shostakovich was also deeply disturbed by news of the Nazi death camps and their attempted extermination of the Jews. In this stark trio, the opening notes from the cello are so high and so pianissimo that they are almost inaudible. It is as if the strain were simply too much to bear. Indeed, each of the three instruments initially finds itself strained outside of its normal range. Eventually, they will return to their normal range, but the music will be no less anguished.  

In the second movement, Shostakovich composed a musical shriek, a long, drawn-out wail of pain and anguish. By contrast, the third movement, a Largo, offers a beautiful lament, one that was played at Shostakovich’s own funeral three decades later in 1975. Repeated chords by Jeremy Denk on piano opened this Largo, followed by a dark, brooding melody from Joshua Bell’s violin and taken up by Steven Isserliss’s cello. The final movement suggests that the plight of Europe’s Jews was on Shostakovich’s mind, as the composer incorporated klezmer music into this closing movement. I personally have always found klezmer music too manic for my taste; and here Shostakovich transformed klezmer’s manic qualities into something horrifically maniacal. It is as if this klezmer music were one frenzied shriek of pain and despair at the Jews’ fate at the hands of the Nazis. The work then concludes with a return to the frozen bleakness of this trio’s opening notes.  

After intermission, the musicians performed Sergei Rachmaninoff’s melancholically lyrical Trio élégiaque No. 1 in G minor. In this work, Rachmaninoff was clearly inspired by Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A minor, but Rachmaninoff endowed this single-movement trio with his own characteristic melancholy. A theme is heard first in the piano, then is taken up in turn by the cello and violin. Cellist Steven Isserliss had some particularly engaging passages in this work. At the close, a coda restates the opening theme as a funeral march. 

The final work on the program was Ravel’s Trio in A minor. As played by Joshua Bell, Steven Isserliss, and Jeremy Denk, this Trio had much of the same coloristic sheen of Ravel’s beautiful String Quartet. Ravel’s artistry here offers abundant pizzicato, tremolos, and sustained trills. A particularly lush melody in the second movement brought on Steven Isserliss’s flamboyant arm-waving, which was almost comical, though thankfully brief. The third movement was in the form of a passacaille, replete with a persistent bass line over which is heard a series of variations. An exuberant Finale offers unusual meters and closes in the major mode.  

All in all, the Bell, Isserliss, Denk Trio offers brilliant continuity with the great Beaux-Arts Trio of past years. I would hope that they will return often to San Francisco, and that they will present here the great Beethoven “Ghost” and “Archduke” Trios, as well as Schubert’s E-flat Trio.