KVT – Trio Trinity Shines again

KVT has yet another night’s music to charm and stir the soul

They’ve really taken the bull by the horns, I thought when I read that Tran Thai Linh and Nguyen Hong Anh were going to play Rachmaninoff’s Sonata for Piano and Cello (Op19)

Rachmaninoff never meant it to be an easy play. It was 1901 and the 28year old had recently recovered from a bout of serious depression and got back into the composing groove with his triumphantly successful Second Piano Concerto. In the rosy adulation that followed he composed his Cello Sonata. Rach was one of the pianos best players around and as he was going to play at the Cello premiere, he probably made sure that the sonata allowed himself to have a showy role. While the cello sings the beautiful tunes, the piano seems to do the dominant work and you often seem to  hear echoes of the Piano Concerto coming through

But the great man, though still a youngster in the wiles of the music world, was no fool and with an eye on future posterity and prosperity he made sure that a brilliant cellist would be able to shine and push the instrument’s voice into the warp and weft of piano soundso that they become one entity.

And searing is the adjective that continued to dart through my mind as Anh and Linh conquered the sonata and left the overflowing audience quite breathless. As each of the four movements concluded I let out a gasp of appreciation. Right from the melancholy and soulfulness of the first movement the pair were hypnotic to hear and watch. Whether it was technically perfect or not I couldn’t care less because it was one of the most passionate and dramatic musical performances this year in Hanoi.

If they’d had a season I’d have been in a seat near the front every night.

For people like me who are Rachmaninoff nuts, here’s a You Tube look at the searing piece in totality, played by Debrus and Mogilevsky

Tran Thai Linh had a mammoth task during the concert recital. The Rachmaninoff lasted for over 40 minutes of super keyboard concentration and the two other major works were over 20 minutes each. He played like a real champion. He has a charismatic presence on stage and folds you into the music very smoothly.

He partnered violinist Nguyen My Huong in Johannes Brahms’s Sonata No 2 for Violin and Piano, Op100. This was one of the composers three Violin Sonatas composed while very contentedly summer holidaying  on LakeThunin Switzerlandbetween 1878 and 1888, and the one we heard Brahms said is like the locality… so full of delicious melodies that the players have to be very careful not to step on any and squash their lyricism

Linh and Huong went about the business of gathering the melodies like precious meadow flowers and achieved the desired result of an intimate performance. They explored the piece’s pastoral tones and tunes that soar joyously like soaring, free wheeling birds.

It’s an emotional work and can only achieve this if the players are working in almost perfect synch….as ours were.

And for those Brahms fans who love his Violin Sonata glorious nesses, here’s an old clip played by Isaac Stern and Myra Hess

The recital began with a work by a composer that I’m rediscovering and thoroughly enjoying all over again….Robert Schumann. Huong, Anh and Linh presented Schumann’s first attempt at writing a piano trio composition, his delightful pieces in Fantasiestücke Op 88.

The piano sort of dominates just about all four fantasy pieces that make up the work, as was Schumann’s intent and it was the trio’s interaction in the second bit, the Humoresque, that got my pulse racing and made me realize that the night was going to be one of those memorable ones with the three musicians able to tease out Schumann’s romantic intent but also get the teasing and whimsicality that echoes through it. No easy task!

Most lovers of the composition fall for the Duet, where the piano slides away and the violin and cello converse above it as played here by the incomparable Martha Agerich and famous friends

Back to the beginning of my opinion piece. After the well deserved and prolonged applause for the Rachmaninoff, the trio came back on stage and gave us a light and breezy and necessarily easy on the mind bit by Astor Piazzol;a whose tangos are always to die for and especially so when played by the Trio Trinity

A huge thanks to the great ship  Goethe and all who sail in it for having the foresight and courage to mentor Trinity. The size of the crowd, young and old, looked as though they were all as pleased and as stirred as I was.

A Grand night!

After wandering out of the Goethe auditorium and into the humid night air we caught a taxi to RockCityto celebrate the Grapevines 5^th birthday. Here the air was alive with the digital and electronic vibes being created by one of my favorite, living contemporary composers, Tri Minh…..not a let down at all!