TRIOZ

James O. Fairfax Theatre, NGA, April 7

An injury to pianist Kathy Selby’s hand caused a last-minute program change for the second concert of the season – two of the three originally programmed works were replaced by others more achievable with her damaged hand. An Elena Kats-Chernin piece was replaced with a Piano Trio by Ross Edwards and the scheduled Rachmaninov trio was set aside for Shostakovich’s Piano Trio in E minor, Op.67.

Pianist Selby, violin player Niki Vasilakis and cellist Emma-Jane Murphy are very fine musicians who work together superbly. They watch each other, look for cues and, I am pretty sure, listen to each other play as well. That might seem obvious, but I am certain I have heard several chamber groups over the past years whose members clearly didn’t.

This was a more adventurous programming than TRIOZ’s previous concerts, with the Edwards and Shostakovich rather more challenging than those originally programmed. Edwards’ Piano Trio was written in 1999 for the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition as a test piece for competitors. It’s full of little swirling fragments of melodies and shifting rhythms that use the possible combinations of the trio to great effect.

The Edwards and Shostakovich works were separated by Beethoven’s Piano Trio in B flat major Op.97 “The Archduke”, written in 1911 and the last of his major piano trios. Musicologists suggest this work has a connection to Beethoven’s mysterious lover, addressed in letters as “Immortal Beloved”. Whatever the secrets about it may bem it is still a grand and impressive piece of music.

The Shostakovich Piano Trio was written in 1943-4, at the height of what Russians called The Great Patriotic War. It concluded the concert. This is a powerful, evocative piece of music suggesting the horrors of the war which must have been becoming more and more apparent to the Soviet population.

This concert had an interesting flow to it. The relatively gentle Edwards trio contrasted with Beethoven’s more grandiose “Archduke” trio.

In turn it had a connection to the Shostakovich: both were written in times of war and at a period when fortunes of those wars were shifting. Perhaps a tenuous connection, but the opportunity to hear the Shostakovich trio is one to be savoured.