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24 Apr 2010 : NZTRIO Review (Wellington)
In recent years NZTrio has established itself as one of the finest chamber ensembles in Australasia and, given the richness of the piano trio repertoire, there will never be a shortage of works for it to perform.
Nevertheless, the trio has shown a dedication to playing new repertoire, and its concerts invariably feature new commissions. This concert was no exception, with new works by Australian-based jazz pianist Judy Bailey, and Australian composer Stuart Greenbaum.
While highly laudable, this commissioning of new works doesn't always produce top-quality works, and I must say I didn't think either of the works heard here had all that much to offer.
Judy Bailey's So Many Rivers begins with spread chords on the piano then offers a string take on the harmonic possibilities before finishing with the opening piano chords. Pleasant, but nothing very much happens.
Stuart Greenbaum's The Year Without a Summer gives us, in music, the 1815 eruption of Mt Tambora, in Indonesia, starting with the eruption and, in its second movement, giving us the "year without a summer" of 1816. It has some effective moments, but does sound a bit like an instrumental reduction of a score for a television documentary.
Just a few spare bars of Arvo Part's Mozart-Adagio, a memorial to the violinist Oleg Kagan, reveals a composer of true stature and individuality, and its haunting reflections of Mozart are not unlike some of the work of the Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov.
The concert opened with a Mozart piano trio, the B flat from 1786 K502. Schumann's Piano Trio No 1 in D minor ended the evening.
The whole programme was superbly performed, and extremely well received.
John Button - Dominion Post, Wellington
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