Piano Trio Reviews

NY Times

Allen Kozinn

That lyricism is given freer reign in Mr. Wilson's Piano Trio (2002), a world premiere. This is a passionate work with tendrils that extend toward Debussy and Messiaen, particularly in extended tandem passages for the cello and violin. Striking, too, are the rhythmic vitality of this trio and the tightness of the interplay between the three instruments. Even when the sharp harmonic edges of the ''Interludes'' make their appearance -- most overtly in the closing Theme and Variations movement -- they are tempered by the context.

A Premiere Work From a Premier Composer

By ADAM BAER, New York Sun. January 7, 2003.

You may consider yourself a classical music listener, fan, or even a patron, but if you don 't attend new-music premieres, you 're fooling yourself. Merkin Concert Hall 's Sunday afternoon concert of Richard Wilson 's music — at which the composer 's 1997 "Three Interludes for Violin and Piano" sounded amid the world premiere of his new Piano Trio as well as sonatas by Beethoven and Debussy — was one such event. And while the turnout was a far cry from meager, there were more empty seats in the hall than there should have been.

Mr. Wilson (born 1941) is a composer who, despite the challenging nature of his music, deserves the attention that he 's earned. The author of some 80 works, including the opera “Aethelred the Unready," he is the composer-in-residence at Leon Botstein 's American Symphony Orchestra. He 's received more than a few of the music world 's most coveted composition prizes and is the Mellon professor of music at Vassar College. He also is possessed of a hard-won idiom that has grown and developed over the years into a probing blend of wit, classic form, modern harmony, and impressionistic color.

Sunday 's concert also displayed Mr. Wilson 's considerable abilities as a working en- semble pianist. He performed each piece on the program rather tastefully, either with the new-music violin maven Rolf Schulte, a lithe Andy Warholish character with a mop-top and large glasses, with the expressive young cellist Sophie Shao — or in the case of his trio, with both musicians at once. Beethoven 's G Major Violin Sonata, Op. 30, was an intriguing piece to start with. It is the most frivolous of the composer 's 10 works in the form, but also the most fun. Mr. Schulte shared that attitude, and, despite the serious-ness of his appearance, fun shined through. Because Mr. Schulte holds his bow above its bottom ebony section (called the "frog"), he is able, like a Baroque musician, to create smooth, searching lines as well as articulations that range from scrappy and light to bouncy and sharp.

Matched with a pianist who approaches Beethoven lyrically not percussively, these abilities resulted in an interpretation that breathed as if it were virulently alive. The violin sound may have been on the thin side, and Mr. Wilson may not have been able to play as hiply as his partner, but the reading 's philosophy eclipsed any limitations.

Mr. Wilson 's "Three Interludes" is not nearly as tonal and superficially playful, but it served as a nice antecedent to the Beethoven. It is made of three short works that deal in chromaticism, chaotic rhythmic combinations, and a tonal sense that sometimes hints at a center but never gets there. This can be particularly jarring to people unprepared for such experiments. But Mr. Wilson 's pervasive academic skills never pander to his inner Romantic, and these pieces are as energetic, intense, and fluid as the violin works of Arnold Schoenberg.

Mr. Wilson 's impressionist influences made an appearance with the violin and cello sonatas of Claude Debussy. Here, Mr. Schulte combined an intense, anxious vibrato with small, highly sculpted phrases, clean harmonics, dramatic slides, and pointillistic spiccato. The message: Debussy 's music is not delicate like a French pastry as more conservative musicians would have us believe, but is witty and caustic, riddled with a digressive, modernist panache that deserves its due.

Ms. Shao 's rendition of the cello sonata was broad and open. She has a soothing tenor in her instrument and the affectionate emotionality to sing passages through their natural end while keeping her feelings in balance with the scale of the musical poetry she 's read-ing. These complementary performance styles made the premiere of Mr. Wilson 's "Piano Trio" (2002) particularly vibrant. On its own, the work is made of four classically written movements: Allegro, Reverie, Scherzo, Theme and Variations. The Allegro is a bit busy, with the presence of tone clusters in the piano part serving as a backdrop for unsettling, conflicting motives in the cello and violin that eradicate tonality. But the Reverie came off as a deliciously dark song on account of its descending triplets, ensemble string melodies, high register harmonics, and rumbling piano motives. The Scherzo was full of life, topped with fast violin trills and driven by speedy piano noodling and rhythmic interplay that featured harsh syncopations before the appearance of a surprise ending. The Theme and Variations wasn 't the most dulcet manifestation of that age-old structure, but it did display Mr. Wilson 's penchant for French color, wave-like melodic figures, and clear if not simple lyricism. A new-music critic 's job is not just to assess the evening 's premiere in its relation to works that have preceded it; it is to think about how his readers would react to the work. It would be subversive, in other words, to blindly praise Mr. Wilson 's music, or claim that it can be enjoyed like the Debussy. It needs a certain fluency in involved musical languages. That said, the high quality of Mr. Wilson 's work deserves note. Such efforts are becoming rarer as high-culture is diluted. The next time his music, or that of his col- leagues, is offered in such a palatable presentation, give it a chance. At the very least, you will emerge from the experience with something to think about.

MUSIC REVIEW; A Composer at the Piano, a Premiere on the Agenda

By Allan Kozinn

Jan. 7, 2003

The program for the chamber music afternoon at Merkin Concert Hall on Sunday was completely democratic: Rolf Schulte, the violinist; Sophie Shao, the cellist; and Richard Wilson, the pianist, were listed in that order, in a typeface that gave them equal billing.

But to a great degree this was Mr. Wilson's show. In standard repertory sonatas by Beethoven and Debussy, the piano was an equal partner with the violin and cello, which is as it should be but not always as it is. More to the point, each half of the program included a work by Mr. Wilson, who is better known as a composer than as a pianist.

His works were composed five years apart, and they suggest a style that is undergoing changes. The earlier work, ''Three Interludes'' (1997), is scored for violin and piano and is in a melodically angular language that gives it an abstruse surface. Beneath that surface, though, there is a lyrical impulse that occasionally seizes the spotlight, particularly in the dark, meditative closing movement.

Mr. Schulte is an experienced new-music performer, and he played the violin lines in both works with assurance and energy. Ms. Shao's contributions to the trio were also strong and focused. She also joined Mr. Wilson for a beautifully phrased and interestingly textured account of the Debussy Cello Sonata. Mr. Schulte's other collaborations with Mr. Wilson were a hotblooded reading of the Debussy Violin Sonata, inflected with portamento that played up the music's sultriness, and Beethoven's Violin Sonata in G (Op. 30, No. 3), which was a driven and at times slightly brash performance.