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9 Jun 2007 : Shock of the New
How to make a rod for your own back: tour a programme that has four new works and only one classic. Tougher still, three were new New Zealand Trio commissions. Three things surprised. How the players coped with this backbreaking load so stunningly well, especially pianist Sarah Watkins, whose burden on concentration seemed non-stop. Chamber Music New Zealand’s long circuit probably helped acclimatise them to the demanding fare by the time they ended up in Christchurch in the Christopher’s Classics series. Second, the hall was close to full, a rarity for an overbalance of unfamiliar music. Third, audience reaction and concentration never let up.
The first commission, James Gardner’s Blessed Unrest, fulfilled the Trio’s desire to open with an “attention-grabbing piece with all guns blazing”. Sure did. The players threw this dissonant nail bomb at the audience with all their vicious might. Successive bomb outbursts were interspersed by passionate waves of string glissandi by violinist Justine Cormack and cellist Ashley Brown. Its flamboyant abrasiveness was too much for some. Its lucid structure and clear dramatic continuum made this non-metric work perfectly acceptable to me. My perverted ears relished its choleric temperament.
The diaphanous Chinese transparency of Five Movements, for Piano Trio by Bright Sheng provided the perfect contrast except for the un-Chinese outspoken outbursts of savage dissonances in the third movement. Its subtle interweaving of Chinese folkloric style beckoned a second hearing.
Helix, another Psathas winner, was a fertile Trio commission. Rhythm and modal writing in its calmer first two movements draw almost solely from his Greek heritage. Psathas’s renowned rhythmic excitement thrived in the finale. Aptly titled Tarantismo, its frantically accelerating speed creates a dance to expel a tarantula’s poison. Sarah Watkins’s concentration never let up in the hiccupy rhythmic complexity of Psathas’s long piano ostinatos.
Yet another new commission started the second half. Its title Moto Perpetuo assured us of a fairly easy listen, but the seasoned Lyell Cresswell’s subtle shifts of rhythm, thematic content and humour ensured the work wasn’t too perpetual.
Come 9.25pm and believers of Samuel Butler’s “The only thing we hate in life is unfamiliar things” had their reward in an aptly turbulent delivery of Mendelssohn’s Trio in C minor Op 66. The players’ approach to the feathery “Midsummer Nights Dream”-like scherzo movement was often too turbulent. But their correctly judged passionate sweep in the outer movements rightly showed Mendelssohn is not always a Romantic era Mozart born at the wrong time.
The Trio’s energy and finesse were tireless in this slog. Lopsidedly new, yes. But for we few who thrive on perpetual unfamiliarity, bravo.
Ian Dando - New Zealand Listener
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