Morgenstern Trio
A young troupe leaps to the top
November 23, 2011The Morgenstern Trio produced astute, stylish and passionate music-making in its debut appearance for the San Antonio Chamber Music Society, Nov. 20 in First Unitarian Universalist Church. The program held landmark piano trios by Beethoven, Ravel and Brahms. The key signatures were all minor, but the performing talent was all major.
The concert brought to a close the Morgenstern’s 20-city US tour, the prize for winning the Kalchstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio Award in 2010. Pianist Catherine Klipfel, violinist Stefan Hempel and cellist Emanuel Wehse had established their troupe only a few years earlier, in Germany.
What sets the Morgenstern apart?
First of all, musical intelligence of the highest order. In Beethoven’s C-Minor Trio, Op. 1, No. 3, the players made clear the purpose of every utterance in relation to the whole. The performance might almost be faulted for having been too well planned, too thoroughly studied -- except that all the planning was guided by insight, and when the music demanded impetuosity and explosiveness, as in the prestissimo finale, the Morgensterners held nothing back.
Which leads to the second salient characteristic of this troupe, its willingness to be carried away by the music, to go all the way. The opening allegro of Brahms’s C-Minor Trio, Op. 101, was brimming with life, muscular and untethered. The witty Pantoum movement of Maurice Ravel’s A-Minor Trio pricked and sizzled with abandon -- but, as throughout the program, no erosion of technical mastery or ensemble precision.
The third notable trait: Stylishness. Standard music notation specifies the pitch, duration and loudness of each note, but not (usually) their colors or the way they aggregate into second-order and third-order rhythmic units. A compelling translation from notation to performance is like a compelling translation from text to speech: You need to have the language in your bones. The Morgenstern players do.
It was expected, of course, that these three German musicians would effectively convey in Beethoven a rhythmic directness that is rooted in German speech and Germanic folk traditions. It was astonishing to hear them switch, after a pause of less than two minutes, to total immersion in Ravel’s more flexible and allusive rhythmic world, and cooler colorations, rooted in French speech.
The Morgenstern Trio’s fourth distinction is Ms. Klipfel herself. Her colleagues on violin and cello played splendidly, too, but I found my ears constantly being drawn to her rhythmic acuity, her clear articulation in every context, her ringing tone and the vitality she bought to every phrase.
The generous encore was the first movement of Brahms’s Trio No. 1 in B. Mr. Wehse delivered the broad opening melody with open-hearted songfulness and gorgeous tone.
Despite its brief history, the Morgenstern Trio is a fully mature and supremely gifted troupe, deserving a place in the top tier. I fervently hope for its return, soon.
Mike
Greenberg
