Arts & Events

On Saturday, April 9, Cal Performances presented the Vienna Piano Trio playing Franz Schubert’s two great piano trios at Berkeley’s First Congregational Church. The B-flat major Trio and the E-flat major Trio both premiered in 1828, the last year of Schubert’s brief life. He died at age 31. The Vienna Piano Trio, consisting of Stefan Mendl, piano; David McCarrol, violin; and Clement Hagen, violoncello; is considered among the world’s best chamber music ensembles. 

Their performance of these Schubert trios was robust and strenuous, full of Romantic Sturm und Drang. Pianist Stefan Mendl was particularly dramatic in his interpretation. Let me take up the two trios in inverse order. It happens that the last music I wrote about before the Covid-19 lockdown began in March 2020 was Franz Schubert’s E-flat major Piano Trio performed by pianist Audrey Vardanega, cellist Tanya Tomkins, and violinist Nigel Armstrong. 

The contrast between that group’s interpretation and that of the Vienna Piano Trio couldn’t be greater. Where Vardanega’s ensemble featured delicacy from the piano, pianist Stefan Mendl of Vienna Piano Trio offered the most strenuous interpretation imaginable. Mendl pounded the piano mercilessly. Where the Vardanega group’s Andante was elegiac in a slow, mournful funeral march, the Vienna Piano Trio’s Andante was ominous from the start and quickly led to an explosion of Sturm und Drang. Where the two interpretations were most alike was in the Scherzo movement, where both groups featured nice interplay between cello and violin offering pizzicatos over the piano’s jaunty melody. The fourth and final movement, the work’s longest, is in the form of a rondo. The piano opens, then a melody is stated first by the violin and next by the cello. The Vienna Piano Trio’s cellist, Clement Hagen, spun a luscious sound from his cello. Then this melody was taken up and developed by the piano, accompanied by pizzicato pluckings from both the violin and cello. When the piano has fully developed this melody it returns to the cello accompanied by pizzicato from the violin. Then this procedure is reversed and the melody is played by the violin with pizzicato from the cellist. The closing moments of this E-flat major Piano Trio were given a particularly dramatic flair, bordering on the bombastic, by the Vienna Piano Trio. 

One hesitates to ascribe the contrast between Vardanega’s group and the Vienna Piano Trio to a mere question of gender. However, it is noteworthy that Vienna Piano Trio is an all-male group while Audrey Vardanega’s group featured two women, herself and cellist Tanya Tomkins. 

Nor is it coincidence, I think, that Vienna Piano Trio’s interpretation of Schubert’s E-flat major Trio was decidedly masculine whereas the Vardanega group’s interpretation offered a balance of delicacy and power. Both interpretations may well have their validity; but I prefer the more balanced version over the decidedly strenuous one offered by Vienna Piano Trio. 

Schubert’s Piano Trio in B-flat major is lighter in tone than his E-flat major Trio. It opens with a brisk attack, then offers a sweeping melody in the strings over the piano’s dotted rhythms. 

A second subject presents a lyrical melody in the cello, beautifully performed here by Clement Hagen, over rippling piano triplets. Violin and cello swap snatches of melody, then the piano takes up the melody with pizzicato from the cello. The second movement offers a gentle barcarolle featuring a lovely violin solo performed here by David McCarroll. The scherzo offers a Schubertian take on two of Vienna’s popular dances, the Ländler and the waltz. Schubert clearly delights in these dance rhythms, and the Vienna Piano Trio shared in that delight. The fourth and final movement here is in the form of a rondo featuring violin and piano with pizzicato from the cello. 

While I certainly cannot fault their execution of these Schubert piano trios, I do regret the failure of the Vienna Piano Trio to acknowledge the delicate aspect of these works. In their view, Schubert seems to be all too massively masculine, with no hint of a more feminine delicacy. I consider this to be detrimental to our understanding of the greatness of Franz Schubert.