Lee Trio
From Golden Gate, a musical bridge
between past and present
April 29, 2010Pianist Melinda Lee Masur has proved a consistently potent, spirited performer in appearances with local chamber groups since moving here in 2007 with her husband, San Antonio Symphony resident conductor Ken-David Masur.
On April 25 we got to hear her in another context, with sisters Lisa Lee (violin) and Angela Lee (cello), performing as the Lee Trio. It turns out that musical talent was very nicely distributed among the three San Francisco natives.
The program’s first half held music by two composers associated with the Lees’ home town -- Ernest Bloch, a Swiss native who serve as director of the San Francisco Conservatory from 1925 to 1930; and Nathaniel Stookey, a San Francisco native. The finale was Felix Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio in C Minor, Op. 66. The San Antonio Chamber Music Society presentation took place in First Unitarian Universalist Church, more intimate and acoustically more engaging than that organization’s usual venue, Temple Beth-El.
The Lee Trio commissioned the program’s centerpiece, Stookey’s Piano Trio No. 1 of 2009, as a sort of 100th birthday gift for the sisters’ maternal grandmother. Each of the three movements is titled with the Chinese name of one of the sisters, as conferred by the grandmother, and each begins with a solo theme of early-classical character played by the titular sister. In each case, the music takes remarkable textural, harmonic and rhythmic excursions while staying within earshot of its thematic origins. This is music in which a historical sensibility is integral to a contemporary sensibility -- both conservative and progressive. It deserves wide exposure.
Bloch’s Three Nocturnes, from 1924, stand far from the Hebraic-Romantic style of the composer’s most familiar works. This music is influenced by Ravel and Debussy, and though it includes some generous melody, the life of the piece is more in its intricate development and fresh harmonies.
Throughout the concert, the Lee Trio’s playing was colorful and fully engaged with the music. The three sisters were not peas in a pod, and one of the special pleasures to this concert was to hear how an idea might subtly change shape or emphasis as it passed among them.
Mike
Greenberg
