NZTrio presents “Fantastique”
Music by Turina, Shostakovich, Chen Yi, Psathas and Franck
JOAQUÍN TURINA – Circulo (1936)
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH – Piano Trio No. 1 in C Minor (1923)
CHEN YI – Tibetan Tunes (2007)
JOHN PSATHAS – Angelus (2025)
CESAR FRANCK – Piano Trio No. 1in F-sharp Minor (1841)
NZTrio – Amalia Hall (violin) / Callum Hall (‘cello) / Somi Kim (piano)
St.Andrew’s on-The-Terrace, Wellington
Saturday, 30th August, 2025
To my surprise I discovered my last encounter with the justly-vaunted NZTrio took place no less than seven years previously – though the Covid pandemic can be held responsible for numerous cancellations, dislocations and reorganisations of music presentations over time, such a biblical duration of estrangement in this case hardly seemed likely! On further investigation I found I had actually been “gazumphed” on a handful of occasions by my fellow-reviewers who’d obviously snaffled the Trio’s more recent Wellington appearances for their own delectation!
Now, here in 2025 I realise this is not the same NZTrio I had seen and heard perform in 2018 – in fact, not even slightly! These are three different musicians whose qualities have naturally realigned my expectations, but whose performance has predictably given rise to a “vive la difference” reaction, and particularly as I had already encountered both Amalia Hall and Somi Kim as concerto soloists in concert to spectacular effect.
To enrich matters even further, the group had a “guest” cellist on this occasion, one who’s currently filling in for the recently-appointed Matthias Balzat – apparently the Trio are using “guest” cellists in different programmes throughout the year, of which Callum Hall (who happens to be Amalia Hall’s brother) is one for this Fantastique programme. Whether this arrangement will continue in future seasons, or the Trio will eventually “secure” Balzat’s occupancy of the cellist’s chair remains to be seen!
Described as “a programme of contrasts” this Fantastique presentation certainly filled the bill, with a positively global range of evocations! Joachim Turina’s music is slowly finding its way back into concert programmes of all kinds, my memory being of a recent performance in Wellington of the once-popular and colourful Danzas fantásticas, and of not-so recent but still-remembered occasional outings for the composer’s second Piano Trio. Tonight’s work was new to me, and a joyful surprise – a brilliant evocation of an Andalusian day, whose title, Circulo, suggests the metaphorical “circle” of a regular world-wide phenomenon of progression from dawn through midday to dusk – there are, of course, “no words to make the sun roll east”, as New Zealand poet ARD Fairburn once wrote….
The music appropriately began with Amanecer (Dawn), with darkly and deeply pondering cello and piano exchanges, from which grew an opening melody on the cello – the violin took it further, and with the piano’s full-blooded support united with the ‘cello in a soulful string unison utterance! How beautifully the NZTrio players then nudged the growing light of day forwards, colouring the changes beautifully with alternating harmonies and reaching a point where the music was liberated into the morning’s fullnesses! Here the violin and ‘cello soared upwards as the piano cascaded light-and-sound energies in all directions, the music conveying an irresistible sense of joyous delight at the day’s promise amid pending excitement, then breaking off exultantly at the top of the music’s concluding phrase!
The second movement, Mediodia (Midday). plunged us into the world of flamenco trajectories and sonorities, with flailing pizzicati from the strings and crunching rhythms from the piano dramatically riveting the listeners’ attentions, see-sawing throughout the movement from pizzicato to arco and from jagged accents to sultry lines – the flamenco rhythms gathered themselves for a final sequence of exuberant swashbuckling gesturings before grandly tipping over and into the work’s final Crepúsculo (Dusk) movement, redolent with feelings of spent energies and relaxed release, the music gradually and beautifully surrendering its buoyancies and high spirits to the oncoming night and its mysteries – gorgeous string playing from Amalia Hall and Callum Hall, with sonorous support from Somi Kim’s piano here, redolent with a nostalgic sense of farewell – with such playing it was easy for me to fall madly in love with this work.
As promised each item brought with it a markedly different sense of “place”, with Dmitri Shostakovich’s youthful Piano Trio in C Minor bringing a new world to view. The marked contrasts within the piece itself were somewhat accentuated by the seventeen year-old composer’s somewhat agitated state when the work was written, of having fallen in love and subsequently dedicating the work to the object of his affections – she eventually married someone else having left her indelible mark on this music’s wildly passionate character! Adding to the music’s character are the pronounced influences of Scriabin, Rachmaninov and Glazunov, the last-named Shostakovich’s composition teacher at the Petrograd Conservatory. Despite its juvenile aspects the music readily hints at a number of the composer’s lifelong traits, such as his love of grotesquerie in various forms – sudden changes of mood through contrasting dynamics, timbres and trajectories, His occasional employment as a cinema pianist also shows through – I read an account of Shostakovich actually rehearsing his part in the work with others as an accompaniment to some films he was playing for!
The piece had almost everything its instrumentalists could want as regards satisfying and involving display of all kinds – trenchantly-involving lines, lyrical display, brilliant and quixotic passages of teamwork, and in certain places near-fulsome virtuosity – both Amalia Hall’s violin and Callum Hall’s ‘cello caught the heart-on-sleeve melancholy of the opening exchanges, but were equally at home with the skitterish contrasting episodes which boiled over in places, the players appearing to relish the “sparring” aspects of the sequences – as for pianist Somi Kim, her playing delivered in spadefuls every variation of mood, from the deep, full throated utterances of the opening, through the more gently-lyrical Rachmaninovian sequences to the all-out virtuosic sweep of the work’s more coruscating moments! Another tidbit of information I picked up from elsewhere was that the final section of the work had at some stage been lost, so that the piece’s last 16 bars in the work as published (not until after the composer’s death) were apparently “added” by one of Shostakovich‘s pupils (Boris Tischenko).
Next came music by Chinese-born American-based composer Chen Yi, a work called “Tibetan Tunes”, one which I’d previously heard twelve years ago, when it was played by the “old” NZ Trio at a memorable “China meets New Zealand in music” concert held at Victoria University of Wellington. Chinese-born Chen Yi, now living in the United States was trained as a classical violinist, but was inspired by her contact during the Cultural Revolution with Chinese folk music to take up further studies of her folk music heritage. She moved to the US in 1986 to continue her musical studies at Columbia University, and at present is Distinguished Professor of Music and Dance at the University of Missouri/Kansas City.
Her two-movement work Tibetan Tunes, written in 2007 for the New Pacific Trio and premiered by them the same year was inspired firstly by a Tibetan folk melody “Du Mu” which is the name of a god of Tibetan Buddhism, one which the composer here wished to depict “in a serene mood”. I remember thinking at my previous hearing of the work how evocative of something “elsewhere” was the writing for the instruments – as it was here, the violin’s harmonic-like held notes contrasting with the rhapsodic, folkish cello tune while the piano’s echoed the exchanges with decorative roulades. After some gentle, widely-spaced canonic gesturings, the strings joined in unison to celebrate the god’s all-encompassing equanimity, and afterwards reflecting individually, leaving the piano with the last word.
The second piece, “Dui Xie” had its genesis in ensembled folk-music featuring bowed and plucked strings and bamboo flutes – dance-like from the beginning, and altogether livelier than the opening work, the strings sang a melody and its variants over the piano’s rhythms, the cello’s lines having a particularly folkish kind of portamento character in places – charmingly old-fashioned! This excitingly changed to exciting string pizzicati and driving piano figurations, before the opening returned bringing expressive, recitative-like harmonics – amazing playing from Amalia Hall – along with piano ostinati, sustained trills from the strings and a climactic mid-air finish!
Appropriately one of the concert’s stopover places was Aotearoa New Zealand, represented here by a work from John Psathas, a piece with the name Angelus and freshly commissioned from the NZTrio itself. It’s actually in part derived from an earlier work for ‘cello and piano called “Halo”, one whose final movement Psathas reworked for NZTrio – these are the composer’s comments at the time of writing the complete work: –
I created this piece around the time of my mother’s death, something I’ve always found it difficult to write about.
The pre-recorded sounds in this piece are very subtle, and in a live performance it should not be visible to the audience how and when these sounds are beginning and ending.
The ‘circle on the head of an angel’ is a good metaphor for these extra sounds; they are like an audio ‘halo’ around the live sounds. They should be quiet enough that the listener isn’t sure if they are hearing them or not, almost like it’s an invisible processing of the natural piano sound.
They are supposed to represent the presence of a spirit from ‘the other side of life’ – for me it is the presence of my mother’s spirit in the room. For you or anyone listening, it could be anyone in your life or mind or heart.
The last movement is really about (the memory of) conflict between child and parent. This conflict is fuelled by strong emotions, mostly love, and is often powerfully dramatic. The way our anger and conflict can be shaped by love within our closest relationships.
The last LH idea in the piano is a way to end with a question, and also a representation of the infinite, and also a dissolving of the physical (the live instrument sound) into the spiritual (the invisible audio halo). I love this ending very much – it is like music from beyond life. (John Psathas)
From the piece’s abrupt beginning the music grabs the listener with its insistent driving rhythms, the syncopations activating exhilarating criss-cross rhythmic thrusts and tugs, with pizzicato violin set against arco cello set against running piano, the intensities rising and falling as the violin’s sul ponticello tones rasp and sting, with the strings descending into the depths, the tremolandi tones intensifying, and the piano sounding doom-laden pronouncements. As the ambiences descend further the composer’s “audio halo” sounds as if from another world, eerily activating a harmonics response from the strings, a strange and wondrous dialogue of connection of sounds floating through space.
Out of the exchanges come impulses of urgency, the energies pushing all ways, upwards, downwards and forwards simultaneously, the piano elaborating on an ever-ascending chorale-like theme which leads to an impassioned kind of recitative from the strings, additionally “whipped up” by swirling piano figures – the resonant sonic wave emanating from the sudden climax of this cornucopian all-together is almost heart-stoppingly allowed to run its course until a gentle piano ostinato emerges, registering first a violin then a cello tremolando response – and, as the piano continues to gently rhapsodise and the strings murmur their assent, the sonic halo reappears, transfixing our riveted sensibilities into an indefinite silence…..what an experience!
I was looking forward to the César Franck Piano Trio at the programme’s end, fascinated at its Op.1 place in this composer’s output and marvelling upon further investigation at there actually being two other similar works sharing the same Opus number! These works were praised by both Mendelssohn and Liszt, the latter generously organising further performances throughout Germany – but Franck’s early years and works were blighted by his difficult relationship with a dominant father, resulting in eventual estrangement and the young man going his own way, pursuing the career of an organist and only returning to chamber and symphonic works in his maturity. As someone who loves masterpieces such as the Violin Sonata and the Piano Quintet, this Op.1 Trio was for me fascinating in sounding occasional pre-echoes of the inspiration that would eventually flower to produce those resounding achievements of Franck’s later years.
A stepwise piano figure opened the work, joined by cello and violin elaborating on a soulful theme, with the exchanges intensifying the interaction – out of a sudden pause came a charming second theme, the instruments then building the triplet rhythms up with gusto, Somi Kim’s piano pounding out the trajectories as Amalia Hall’s violin passionately sang the melody, with Callum Hall’s ‘cello-tremolandi filling out the quasi-orchestral textures with urgently upward-rushing figures! These vigorous peregrinations wound the exchanges down through major-minor key shifts to a crashing,almost apoplectic-making concluding chord!
An allegro molto movement followed, the piano tapping out a repeated note triplet rhythm and the strings urging along a kind of horseback-ride melody – splendid stuff, with the strings adding skitterish figurations for exciting effect! – the trio section did well with simple means, a downward-rushing scale in canon between piano and strings, varying this effectively with the strings ascending against the piano’s descent! A return to the triplet scherzo music had the solo strings varying the mix with pizzicato repetitions of the horseback music, almost to sinister effect in places – this led to an unexpectedly resounding plunge, attacca, into the work’s finale – a stirring transition which worked splendidly, so that, almost before we knew what was happening, the Allegro Maestoso was on its way, complete with great pianistic flourishes and gesturings from Somi Kim.
Easeful, lyrical and whole-hearted playing from Amalia Hall’s violin and Callum Hall’s ‘cello engaged our interest through contrasting minor-key episodes and some singular, almost honky-tonk modulations – the young Franck determined to flaunt his wares! – that done, the players raced into what felt like the movement’s coda, at the conclusion of which , the unexpected pause before the final flourish caught us out, as it would have done many audiences before, bursting in as we did, with premature applause! – followed, of course, by subsequent laughter and giggles all around at the combination of our eagerness and the youthful composer’s largesse! All in all – Fantastique! – just as promised!