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A third of the way through the latest concert in the Kallos Chamber Music Series — held Wednesday evening at the New Haven Lawn Club — cellist Daniel Hamin Go had a little insider’s tip. “In order for this to be the best concert you’ve ever been to, this is what you have to do. During the intermission, which will begin in about 16 minutes, there is lots of wine!” The audience laughed. “And some good food. I highly recommend you either get drunk or you stuff yourself, because then we will sound amazing.” The audience laughed again. It was a fitting encapsulation of the tone of the evening, in which the music was serious but the mood informal and festive, making for a night of serious fun.
The theme of Wednesday’s concert was “Forgotten Heroes,” meant to draw attention to lesser-known composers or lesser-known works by well-known composers. On hand to perform the works were Kallos founder and artistic director Min Young Kang on piano, Daniel Hamin Go on cello, and Isabelle Ai Durrenberger on violin. This exceptional trio served up one exquisite performance after another, punctuated by commentary that was by turns helpful, heartfelt, and humorous.
Kang began with an overview of the life of pianist and composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel, who had been a child prodigy, a student of Mozart’s, who hosted a concert for Hummel when the boy was only nine. He grew up to become a colleague of Haydn’s, a friend to Goethe, and a pallbearer at Beethoven’s funeral, where he also improvised a piano piece. Later he influenced Chopin and Liszt in the next generation of composers. In terms of Western classical music development, Kang pointed out, he “was standing right on the edge, between two periods,” and in his music, “you can hear a little bit of both.”
The first movement of Hummel’s Piano Trio in E‑flat major, Op. 12 started off bright and conversational, each instrument making interjections that the musicians brought out without making too much of a fuss about them. Go found a playfulness in a cello line that Durrenberger picked up as soon as it was her turn to respond. As Kang put propulsion into her part, Durrenberger and Go easily blended the voices of their instruments in a call and response second that braided into a harmony. The trio executed precise phrasing throughout, with particular attention to dynamics, keeping the emotions flowing without being overly dramatic. A long sigh of a note at the end of the movement brought a hushed wow out of someone in the audience.
The second movement turned from a pastoral theme into a more unsettling development section that found all the musicians navigating surprising shifts in tone. As the strings returned to the theme, the piano fluttered beneath them. In the third movement, Kang, Durrenberger, and Go all bit into the chittering argumentative opening statements, setting the quick pace for a flitting melody that each musician got to take a ride on. The tight ensemble work — and the first indication of just what the trio was capable of — was most evident here, as the musicians nailed a few pops in dynamics that felt almost concussive. As they concluded, the delight was palpable on each of their faces.
Go introduced Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Trio élégiaque No.1 in G minor by explaining that Rachmaninoff had written it when he was 18 years old, still a conservatory student. He was getting ready for his debut as a pianist, and “it is believed this piece was premiered in that debut recital. He began writing this piece less than two weeks before the recital and he wrote it in four days — which is a day or two more than we had to put together.”
When the laughter subsided, Go described Rachmaninoff’s music as a “dialogue between light and darkness … there’s hope because he recognizes devastation. There is love because he feels pain. There is angst and anger because I think he recognizes that the world could be much better.”
The Rachmaninoff began with shimmering chords from the strings while the piano stated a simple, effective melody, then quickly elaborated on it. The composer then flipped the script, giving the strings the same melody and elaborations with the piano as accompaniment. It was, in a sense, an overture to the entire piece. As the piece gained momentum, Durrenberger had a chance to explore some icy tones on her violin, before both she and Go pulled big tone out of their instruments, which, along with Kang’s piano, swelled to fill the room. They brought out Rachmaninoff’s gift for making even small ensembles sound like an orchestra. Go and Durrenberger, when required, put a rougher edge on their tone to great effect. A relatively peaceful passage followed, with Kang moving through the music at a stately pace, a breath before a final tumult. In the end, the piece returned to the melody it had begun with, a reminder that all the audience had just heard sprang from the composers inventions and reinventions of a phrase of just four notes.
Go introduced Four Pieces for Cello and Piano by Frank Bridge, British composer and teacher of Benjamin Britton, by explaining the relationship between him and Kang. They met as students at the Manhattan School of Music and became close friends. “She was there for me at the toughest time of my life,” Go said. They picked Bridge’s songs to perform because the pieces reminded them of a sense of “coming full circle.” In the past week, they’d had a chance to catch up and reminisce, noting “how we’ve changed and how we’ve stayed the same.”
As they played, each of the four pieces were simple but absorbing, a beguiling combination of plaintive and playful. Kang and Go excelled at bringing out the subtleties of their character, and overall, it really did sound as Go had promised: like two old friends playing music together.
Durrenberger introduced Arno Babadjanian’s Piano Trio by explaining that the Soviet Armenian composer was well regarded as both a composer and pianist, and “we all came into this piece with a healthy fear.” Babadjanian had “technical finesse for miles” and “you can tell: It’s a tough piece, and we’ve enjoyed getting to sink our teeth into it together.” She noted the the piece opens with a leitmotif, repeated through every movement; it and all the other elements combined Babadjanian’s “immense soulfulness” as a composer with his love and knowledge of Armenian folk music. “We’re going to go on a journey,” she said.
The first movement started off brooding and lush, a strong unison of violin and cello stating the theme while the piano provided sparse chords. As the music began to gather momentum, the cello dove low and the violin rose high. For a time Kang’s part sounded almost reminiscent of the Rachmaninoff, as though Babadjanian was commenting on his predecessor. As the music began to drive, the music had Durrenberger and Go backflipping through some of their most complex unisons yet. As Durrenberger suggested, this was music that was putting the musicians to a test.
The second movement suspended Durrenburger in the upper reaches of her instrument’s range with only fragile scaffolding from Kang for support. Just as the score stranded the violin at the top of the fingerboard, the cello came in for the rescue, just in time for both of them to enter stormy musical waters together. It mattered that the piece was difficult; the difficulty made it better, and the musicians used it to push themselves and their instruments, letting show the grit, the concentration, the vitality of the score. It all served the interests of the music.
The third movement leaned hardest into its Armenian folk music sources, off with a bang in an odd time signature while simultaneously throwing a few ideas from the first and second movement in a blender. The intensity only rose and rose, until the motif that had started the first movement returned, in its most strident, almost monstrous, and most beautiful form. The audience rewarded them with a standing ovation, well-deserved; it had been a thrill to listen to these highly accomplished musicians challenge themselves, and succeed, and take us all along with them.
Visit Kallos’s website for information about the rest of its 2023 – 24 season.