The combination of five splendid musicians and three Beethoven chamber masterpieces for the Foundation for Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts concert almost satisfied my lofty expectations at Jordan Hall last night. The distinguished violinist, Joseph Lin, whom many Boston music lovers may remember from his splendid recital a few years ago of all six of Bach’s solo Partitas and Sonatas, had invited four equally admired friends (violinist Claire Bourg, violist Hsin-Yun Huang, cellist Raman Ramakrishnan and pianist Helen Huang) to join him in in three great masterpieces that concluded Beethoven’s so-called middle period: the composer’s self-titled “Serioso” Quartet; the tenth and final Sonata for Violin and Piano, and his last Trio (the “Archduke”) for piano, violin and cello. Though he wrote them over a period of two years (1810-1812), the composer decided to have them published together in 1816 as his Opus 95 (the “Serioso”), Opus 96 (the Sonata) and Opus 97 (the “Archduke”). In 1816, the composer was in the midst of his troubled transition to his “final” period and the publication of these works together suggested that he may have thought they marked the conclusion of his successful career. For reasons that I have never really understood, Beethoven liked to compose triptychs that illustrated the variety of his interests at a single point of time.
The Opus 96 Sonata, with Lin and Helen Huang could not have gone better. It begins in a way that suggests that the instruments are questioning each other. “Shall we do it?” the violin seems to ask. “Shall we?” is the piano’s questioning response. And it is that seductive and teasing conflict that drives the four movements over nearly 30 minutes. This was chamber music performance at its very best: a partnership of equals that could be lively and exciting (the first movement); almost Mozart-like in its intimacy and tenderness; flirtatiously waltzing (the Scherzo); and resolutely comic (the finale). Lin played with a mastery of color, purity of intonation and beauty of tone. Huang, always impressive in the Mozart-Beethoven-Schubert repertory, used her considerable virtuosity to remain with and to partner Lin at every moment.
The “Serioso” in which Lin played first violin and Bourg second, Hsin-Yun Huang viola, and Ramakrishnan cello, stands alone among Beethoven’s 16 string quartets in much the way that the “Appassionata” stands among the composer’s 32 piano sonatas. It is not pretty music. It is Beethoven at his most ferocious and urgent, tragic and terse and with, as Robert Greenberg has written, “an eccentricity and a concentration that are new even for Beethoven.”
Transitional passages are minimal, piling dissonance upon dissonance. Yet moments of great beauty, such as the descending cello line (exquisitely executed by Ramakrishnan) that opens the second movement and a few moments of expressive respite for the entire ensemble at the beginning of the finale do relieve the frenzy. But with the exception of a few measures of near-ecstatic joy in the coda of the finale (which has puzzled music historians for generations), this is a wild, rock‘em, sock’em encounter which unfolded with unflinching courage and determination.
The 40-minute-long “Archduke” Trio (with Lin, Ramakrishnan and Helen Huang) should have the crowned the evening. That it failed to do so―even with three such accomplished musicians―frustrated, puzzled and even angered me. Despite superb execution from all (Huang, especially, seemed to find exactly the appropriate expression for each nuance in the piano part), the regal and magisterial “Archduke” sounded demoted to a regional duchy.
In truth, it sounded like a duo for violin and cello, with a discreet piano obbligato. In the “Archduke,” the pianist should be the first among equals: the voice that leads and guides the other two (Indeed, the first edition lists the piano first). Last night one had occasionally to struggle to hear Huang. I suspect that the reason may have been in part, a matter of optics. Huang, who has a powerhouse, impregnable technique and who played brilliantly in the piano and violin sonata, was somewhat hidden. The ensemble set up on stage with a charismatic-looking violinist and an imposingly large cellist seated close together on stage, impeding the view of Huang, who sat to the rear of the stage. And if you don’t think vision is an important part of hearing, think again. What one does not see becomes hard to hear.
Moreover, the arrangement was also acoustically faulty. For most of my life, I had always tried to attend performances of the Beaux Arts Trio. As I recall, Menahem Pressler, the great pianist who was the heart and soul of that ensemble, occupied a position between, not in back of the cellist and violinist. Several weeks ago, in the same Jordan HalI, I attended a performance of Shostakovich’s E Minor Trio with pianist Minsoo Sohn, cellist Andrew Byun and violinist Ayano Ninomiya. They sat like members of the Beaux Arts: each occupying his own space to which the listeners in the hall had unimpeded vision. The blend of the sonorities of the piano, violin and cello could not have been better. I strongly suspect that if Lin, Ramakrishnan and Huang had arrayed themselves in the same manner, their audience would have heard a different-sounding ― and better ― “Archduke.”