The finest chamber music concert within recent memory happened Saturday night at Moody Performance Hall. Sadly, the hall remains closed to live audiences due to the coronavirus pandemic. But a high-quality — if technically glitchy — video stream displayed violinist Amy Schwartz Moretti, cellist Bion Tsang and pianist Joyce Yang in first-class form. The concert will be available for delayed streaming.
Yang has been a favorite around here ever since taking second prize in the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Tsang, who’s on the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin, has been a frequent visitor, too. Moretti was a violinist new to me, but I’d love to hear a lot more of her.
The program was a triptych of romantic music, early to late: Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata (composed for a long-extinct bowed guitar, but long since adopted by cellists), Brahms’ B major Piano Trio and a Suite for violin and piano arranged from Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s incidental music for Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.
The praise that applies to each of these performances applies to all three. These were top-flight musicians with extensive chamber music experience. Although assembled just for this concert, they consistently felt the music as one. And they were clearly enjoying themselves.
These were deeply felt performances, passionate where called for, but always under control. Generous expressive gestures were applied with amazing unanimity, yet there was sophisticated interplay between the players. Each knew when his or her part wanted that extra bit of spotlight, and when it wanted to retreat into the textures. I’ve rarely heard an established trio play so unrelievedly well.
Tsang’s account of the Schubert was elegance itself, with just the right playfulness in just the right places. Moretti’s soaring lines in the Korngold’s “Garden Scene” would have melted the hardest heart, but she supplied plenty of feistiness in the second and fourth movements.
I can’t think I’ve ever heard the Brahms more gloriously played. There was ardor aplenty, without sacrificing tenderness. Phrases lovingly caressed never compromised the music’s structural urgency. Amusingly, Tsang began the finale before Yang was quite ready, prompting good-humored smiles and a perfect restart.
Here, as in the two other pieces, Yang was the very model of a collaborative pianist. Colors and dynamics were fastidiously scaled, always in perfect interaction with her colleagues.
I don’t know at what point technical glitches arose between the cameras and microphones and my computer and sound equipment. Early on, the sound seemed to be monaural, but eventually well-balanced stereo came through. At one point, the right channel dropped out, and there was a brief blast of noise.
The whole transmission froze in buffering a couple of times in the Korngold, and audio and video slipped out of sync in the Brahms. These issues should not occur on replays.
Details
A delayed video stream of this concert is available for $40; discounts for students and seniors. 972-385-7267, chambermusicinternational.org.
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