William Dart review: NZTrio Town Hall Concert Chamber

NZTrio are Amalia Hall, Ashley Brown and Somi Kim.

What: NZTrio

Where: Town Hall Concert Chamber

When: Sunday

Reviewer: William Dart

NZTrio enjoyed a responsive audience for its first Homeland concert of music reflecting the intimacy of home, belonging and finding your place.

The Homeland series is centred around Dvorak, whose uncompromising love of his native land spilt out in zesty dances and unbridled lyricism.

Alas, his Opus 26 is not his strongest piano trio, and the musicians worked hard to sustain its 35 long minutes. While one appreciated the play of colours in its Largo, the scherzo’s rather limp trio was a definite liability before a finale that called for more capriciousness.

American Daniel Temkin introduced his Five Bagatelles, tributing his favourite 20th-century composers in what he described as very unfiltered love letters.

There was a certain charm in the brevity of these miniatures, even if a Fugue for Britten seemed a tad dry and a Romanze for Copland a mite banal. Still, ample compensation came in delicate shimmerings for Dutilleux and compulsively stalking scales for Ligeti.

NZTrio worked hard to sustain the 35 long minutes of Dvorak's Opus 26.

It was cheering when cellist Ashley Brown introduced Eve de Castro-Robinson’s the willing air as the latest of more than 70 commissions by NZTrio.

This was an inventive exploration of spiritual calm, through a range of instrumental and vocal techniques, including effectively hushed whispering. The composer’s extrovert spirit broke out when bows thwacked strings, or birds took off in a flurry of fluttering, until peace finally reigned, with a medieval carol, whistled against strings.

Calm, so beautifully achieved, was brutally shattered with a 1945 Piano Trio by Mieczyslaw Weinberg. This was high-tensile, confrontational stuff, a cri de coeur against Soviet oppression. Pianist Somi Kim unleashed terrifying toccatas and grim dances, whilst searingly sad melodies, poignantly played by Amalia Hall and Ashley Brown, brought a bleak beauty of their own.

If an encore had been needed after such a soul-baring experience, three minutes of Shostakovich sardonicism might have fitted the bill. However, a pedestrian transcription of Dvorak’s sentimental Songs My Mother Taught Me was just inappropriate.