Leonore Piano Trio

Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh; 6/8/24

Leonore Piano Trio

The forenoon of Tuesday 6th August brought the Leonore Piano Trio to the Queen’s Hall with a programme of works by Clara Schumann, Helen Grime and Dvořák.  The three players, violinist Benjamin Nabarro, cellist Gemma Rosefield and pianist Tim Horton, are all members of the 11-member Ensemble 360, and it was as a result of the enthusiastic response of audiences to their performances of piano trio repertoire as part of that ensemble that they formed the Leonore Piano Trio in 2012 as a separate touring chamber entity.  The recital was very well attended.  In this digital age, the artists still play from sheet music.  Though no Luddite, I find this oddly reassuring.

I had expected to find Clara Schumann’s 1846 Piano Trio Op.17 unfamiliar but, though I could not tell you precisely where, I was delighted to find I had definitely heard it before.  It is a gem and the players revealed its deep beauty.  The folklore of string players harbours a wariness of pianist composers’ tendency to write unsympathetically for strings, but this certainly does not apply to Clara Schumann.  The cantabile conversation between violin and cello that is such a feature of the whole piece put me in mind of an expertly crafted love duet of a married couple, with the piano representing their interaction with their social milieu.  The G-minor of the first movement is a warm key for strings and the playing was warmly engaging, with exquisite tone from the strings and delightful mutually responsive phrasing between all three.  The minuet, a gorgeous B-flat major violin melody (with those same two lovely flats) over cello pizzicato and gentle piano chording was delicious, whilst its trio section gave the piano a chance to perform as a raconteur with appreciative string comments.  The piano starts the G-major slow movement Chopinesquely with a cantabile melody which is taken up by the violin over cello pizzicato.  An argumentative central section with dotted rhythms intervenes before the conciliatory cello returns to the opening melody which becomes a love duet with the violin over rippling arpeggiation on the piano.  Magical.  Back to the minor for the lovely Mendelssohnian start of the finale, though it hovers between major and minor as the movement progresses.  After a passionate climax, the development is a satisfying fugue.  After a dramatic recapitulation and coda, the piece ends emphatically in the major.  A persuasive, engaging and committed performance of a masterpiece.

Cellist Gemma Rosefield addressed the audience to introduce Helen Grime’s 2008 ‘The Brook Sings Loud’, a theme-and-variations style of piece influenced by Scottish pibroch music, commissioned by Aberdeen Chamber Music Club.  She also mused on the fact that Clara Schumann was tormented by self-doubt and even doubted whether women should even attempt to compose.  Helen Grime’s own notes on her piece state: “The piece is in one movement and is punctuated by solo passages for each member of the group. The violin solo leads way to a fast, energetic section. The piano interlude juxtaposes the fiery faster music with calm music, and the cello cadenza paves the way to a slow, melancholy final section where the two string instruments are set against differing material in the piano.”  The piece is quite evocative (for me, more of a wild west-coast machair than the North-East), and there is some interesting exploration of timbral effects.  I cannot imagine that it is destined to be a favourite, but it received a committed and skilful performance.

After the interval, pianist Tim Horton introduced the Dvořák, his 1883 Piano Trio No 3 in F minor Op 65, mentioning that the composer’s first two attempts at the genre are rarely performed, but that No.3 marks his finally perfecting his approach to it.  It is in his darker ‘Brahmsian’ style, before his less austere ‘Slavonic’ period.  The first movement is dramatic and full of foreboding, quite densely scored with only occasional major key motifs.  The ensemble sound was quite phenomenal – it was abundantly clear that the players love performing this music.  The scherzo is almost a Slavonic dance with displaced accents, occasionally hemiolic but not actually a furiant, with a dreamier rhapsodic trio and a teasing bridge passage before the reprise.  The surpassingly beautiful Adagio, mostly in the warm key of A-flat major, received some of the most touching chamber phrasing and cantabile playing of the afternoon.  Back to F-minor for the dramatic finale, another dance with displaced accents, but in the form of a sonata-rondo.  The second theme was more lyrical and expansive without robbing from the forward momentum.  Dvořák keeps us guessing as to whether the piece will end in the major or minor, even as it stops twice and then slows down.  A final dash ends in the major.  This was a superb outing for the piece, displaying beyond doubt its status as a masterpiece.  The Queen’s Hall audience knew they had witnessed something special.

There was an encore, the Presto finale of Haydn’s Piano Trio No.43 in C major.  Full of Haydn fun and mischief, it is supposed to be fast and witty.  It was played very fast; to my personal taste way too fast, robbing it of some of its cheek and charm and turning a wink into a nervous tic.  A pity, after an otherwise superb concert.

This was my first time hearing the Leonore Piano Trio live and they are consummate artists and charismatic advocates for the genre, as well as a cohesive collective ensemble of chamber musicians with a freshness and immediacy in their approach to engaging live performance.  But I cannot leave it unsaid that it was the consistent quality of Gemma Rosefield’s cello playing that stood out for me as extra special, with tone, phrasing, flawless intonation, expressive lyricism and cantabile radiance that I would describe as world-class.  And she plays a beautiful instrument: an online search reveals that it is a 1704 Gagliano.  I would travel a long distance to hear that again.

Photo credit: Kaupo-Kikkas