University of Wyoming presents Helios Trio in Review
Helios Trio: Chi-Chen Wu, piano; John Fadial, violin; Beth Vanderborgh, cello
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY
March 1, 2022
I can’t speak with authority about the State of the Union, but I can assert that the State of Chamber Music in Wyoming is very fine, as manifested by the Helios Trio (Not to be confused with the French-based Trio Helios!): Chi-Chen Wu, piano; John Fadial, violin; Beth Vanderborgh, cello; on Tuesday, March 1, 2022. They gave the audience a rich Mardi Gras indulgence, but I hope they’re not giving chamber music up for Lent.
The program of two pillars of the piano trio repertoire and one novelty was played with great togetherness, sensitivity, solo ability, unanimity of phrasing, and dynamic planning.
The program began with The Spirit and the Maiden (2004, rev. 2013) by Elena Kats-Chernin (b. 1957), born in Uzbekistan but a resident of Australia from an early age. This is a programmatic trio, based on a mystical tale, a sort of “reverse” Ondine, if you will: the seductive water creature is male and the mortal victim is female. One often hears that with program music, the important thing isn’t the program at all, but the quality of the music without the program. If I had heard this work without reading the story, I would have enjoyed it; however, I can’t really detect an “illustration” of the story in its three movements, as lovely as they are.
The three movements are what I like to call “maximal” minimalism—there are some of the usual hallmarks (motoric energy, repeated patterns), but Kats-Chernin also uses modal melodies that are very accessible and sounding almost folkloric. The performance was beautiful and engaging; the enigmatic ending almost prohibited the audience from applauding.
Helios followed this with the first of Mendelssohn’s two piano trios, the oft-played D minor, Op. 49. Once again, everything was scrupulously prepared, with fine attention to phrasing. One small caveat: I found pianist Chi-Chen Wu to be extremely virtuosic but overly deferent in terms of balance. This made the work sound “small-scale” when, in important places, it should have sounded more heroic. She played so softly that in too many places there were notes that didn’t sound; this was particularly detrimental in the final chord of the Andante movement, where one only heard B-flats from strings and piano, instead of a full B-flat chord in the piano. The writing is indeed thick at times (Mendelssohn’s piano was lighter), but all notes must be played and then a dynamic determination made. Never mind, the blistering speed Ms.Wu adopted in the Scherzo showed her credentials as a pianist to be admired.
I also particularly enjoyed the fine playing of cellist Beth Vanderborgh, especially in the Andante, but throughout. So often in piano trios the cellist tends to be the “ignored” one. Her musicality would allow none of that, and she brought attention to lines that one often doesn’t pay attention to. Perhaps besides the discretion of the pianist, she was aided in this by violinist John Fadial, who never played like a diva, but I felt he even scaled some of his big moments down. The ensemble took many of the “standard” places where one expands the tempo, but they also contributed some of their own individuality to what amounted to an exciting rendition.
After intermission, they tackled Maurice Ravel’s only piano trio. Ravel viewed each one of his relatively few compositions as the unique and perfect solution to a musical problem he posed to himself. Thus, the piano trio, with its perennial balance issues became his thesis. Ravel the master orchestrator brings his skill to the three instruments perfectly, while not neglecting to create heartbreakingly simple modal themes to express emotion.
In this work, Helios really opened up. Ms. Wu came out of her shell and really rose to the immense climaxes that are required. The first movement’s main theme, in a Basque rhythm called zortziko, is “of Basque color,” as Ravel said. He composed it just adjacent to his birthplace of Ciboure in Basque country, in July 1914 “despite the rain and freezing temperatures” (unusual on the Côte Basque in July), a sort of harbinger.
The first three movements were finished prior to the outbreak of World War I. Ravel loathed any association of his music with current events (the violence of La Valse, for example), but it is hard not to hear in the fanfares of the Final, the desperate hopes for victory in the coming conflict.
The Pantoum, second movement scherzo, is based on an esoteric Malaysian verse form with interlocking lines within the stanzas. Here, Ravel does find some musical equivalency with the two main themes interweaving. Ever the master constructor, the first (silvery rapid) theme of the Pantoum, greatly slowed down, becomes the melody of the Passacaille.
Equally hard not to hear is the De Profundis despair of this Passacaille, which in the Baroque was a composition based on a repeating bass line. Of course Ravel the fastidious perfectionist knew he wasn’t writing a strict passacaglia at all, only the melody repeats, climbing out of the depths, building to a shattering climax, and then retreating, mirror-fashion, to its tomb-like conclusion. This journey was gorgeously rendered by the three members of Helios.
By this time, everyone in the audience knew, as well as I, that the Final would be an exciting ride, and indeed it was. Ravel himself, despite repeated rejections by the French army, managed to enlist and serve as a truck driver in 1916 and early 1917, near the Verdun front. During this time, he became ill, and his beloved mother died—he was discharged to attend her funeral. The premiere of the Trio was in January 1915, and during those anguished early months of heavy losses, it went virtually unnoticed. Thank goodness for wonderful advocates of the trio repertoire like Helios, who bring it to us in our own anguished time. Dear Helios, please return often!
