8 Mar 2004 : Convincing variations on a French theme

Theme concerts are an attractive idea for a festival. Nothing too obscure or erudite here: just French music of the late 19th and mid 20th centuries.

The trios by Chausson and Debussy were both written around 1880, but because Chausson was seven years older, his is by far the more mature and interesting piece.
Along with a lot of his rather slender output, the trio counts as an important work in the repertoire, and I can hardly imagine a more convincing case for it than this performance by the three Christchurch-raised musicians who form this group.

Chausson had an interesting musical mind, which had absorbed Wagner but was not enslaved by him; found attractive musical ideas that he developed and juxtaposed in ways that held the interest. The first movement, starting in serious mien, gathered energy and momentum in the hands of these players, who performed the arresting third movement, Assez lent, with lyrical feeling for its breadth and weight.

I have heard performances of this work that seemed too rhetorical and failed to capture Chausson’s virtues, but this, technically impressive, had authority and held attention through the players’ instinctive feel for the music’s character and architecture.

The other two works were interesting rather than rewarding.

I could tell why I had not come across this youthful work by Debussy before. Though it is assured and attractive and engages the listener, even played with sincerity, as here, it never runs very deep.

As for the post-World War II piece by Milhaud, here is a composer who is subject to the charge of facile over-production and I hate feeling subject to such received opinions. There is nothing much facile about this trio, however. Its idiom is diverse and quite complex, a creation of its time; it stretches the players’ resources somewhat and it does perhaps raise expectations that are not quite fulfilled.

Lindis Taylor, The Dominion Post, Wellington