The Koru Trio
Rachel Thomson (piano), Anne Loeser (violin) Sally Isaac (‘cello)
BEETHOVEN – Romance No. 2 in F Major Op.50 (arrangement for violin and piano (published; Simrock)
BEETHOVEN – Piano Trio No. 6 in B-flat Major Op. 97 “Archduke”
St.Michael’s Church, St.Michael’s Crescent, Kelburn, Wellington
Saturday 8th August, 2026
Review for “Middle C” by Peter Mechen
A chance to revisit the ineffable beauties of the ambience and atmosphere of St. Michael’s Church in Kelburn, a place I’d actually discovered for myself earlier this year as a venue for music-making, came with the announcement of a concert to be presented by the Koru Trio. I was somewhat taken aback when I “looked up” the Middle C website to ascertain just when it was I’d last heard this ensemble play, and found the occasion was no less than six years ago at a St.Andrew’s Lunchtime Concert! – https://middle-c.org/2020/07/koru-trio-giving-the-st-andrewss-audience-its-kohas-worth-and-more/ – what was more, it reviewed performances whose excellences should have been set in stone in my memory, so effusive were the terms with which I’d expressed my pleasure at the playing’s qualities! As the performers in practically all the concerts I attend obviously bring so much more in terms of skill, involvement and understanding of the music that I do as a mere listener, it’s only fair that I confess on occasions such as these to my failings of proper and lasting “connection” with the music I hear, and especially so when the -performances deserve to be better remembered!
Having gotten that sin of omission “off my chest” as it were, I feel I can revisit with a clear conscience my feelings regarding the efforts of tonight’s performers in realising the beauties and spontaneities of the music we were given. It wasn’t a long and involved concert, the fewer-than-usual items arguably allowing our responses ample space for appreciating the content more deeply and thoughtfully, a kind of “quality set against quantity” dynamic which I thought worked to the experience’s advantage.
It all began most felicitously with tonight’s composer, Ludwig van Beethoven, presented in a more than usually mellow mood with his serenely melodic Op.50 Romance in F Major, here in an arrangement for violin and piano (published by Simrock) as opposed to the composer’s original version for soloist and orchestra. Both instruments sounded to my ears beautifully voiced in relation to one another, Anne Loeser’s violin so rich in her middle and lower register, and so silvery at the top, while her partnership with pianist Rachel Thomson was straightaway marked with a sense of “give and take”, the piano’s liquid tones seeming to readily “find” the points of exchange with the violin in bringing out the veracity of the music’s “Romance” title. Here, the performance didn’t hesitate to venture briefly into the music’s darker side as well, though the nuances from both players seemed in agreement in their gradual return to the opening’s serenity, allowing the ‘whimsy’ that was enjoyed by both in the concluding exchanges to surrender to the music’s dying fall with acceptance and grace aplenty.
One of Beethoven’s most famed compositions, the “Archduke” Piano Trio, completed by the composer in 1811 has the somewhat sad distinction of being the last keyboard work Beethoven played in public, due to his ever-increasing deafness which by then was seriously undermining his ability as a performer. Contemporaries such as Louis Spohr and Ignaz Mosecheles have left accounts of their illustrious contemporary’s pitiable state as a pianist by this stage, throwing into greater relief the increasing transcendence of his creative efforts as time went on.
The work got its name from its dedication to one of Beethoven’s most constant supporters and patrons among the aristocracy, the Archduke Rudolf of Austria, who was an amateur pianist and a sometimes pupil of the composer – among the other most famous compositions Beethoven dedicated to Rudolf are the “Emperor” Piano Concerto, the “Hammerklavier” Piano Sonata and the ”Missa Solemnis – it could be said that we have a lot to thank His Imperial and Royal Highness for!
With ‘cellist Sally Isaac having joined the ensemble on the platform, we were ready, the piano obviously chafing at the bit to begin, the strings in waiting, and the audience expectant – what more could be required of a performance to excite with its prospects? Rachel Thomson’s confident and assertive opening invitation drew both her colleagues and her audience into the composer’s world of self-assured statement and ready reply – there was straightaway a kind of eagerness to explore in the exchanges an atmosphere of going places as opposed to any thoughts of self-satisfaction and contentment with a status quo – if it sounded to me just a trifle rushed at first, it conveyed a youthful vigour, which the opening’s repeat was then content to pull back and allow a touch of almost Olympian grandeur, the intent duly expressed and the means and expectations confident.
The development gorgeously unravelled the opening theme, the players here savouring the individual phrases from the whole, the strings having bowed their different impulses with the piano’s encouragement, then turned to pizzicato phrases, firstly in dialogue and then intertwining their lines and dancing with the piano’s equally playful responses. The return of the reconstituted theme gave the cello a chance to sing before the piano led the ensemble daintily through a dancing world, the strings following canonically behind until the cello’s gorgeous thematic variation that always sounds to me so much like the opening of one of the Rasumovsky Quartets (No.7) – even if NOT in that work’s key of F major! Here it all sounded so joyous, with a magnificently-voiced return of the great opening theme, before the players grandly and decorously delivered the final chords!
The scherzo delighted with its “question-and-answer” opening, the players’ enjoyment of the exchanges palpable, as Sally Isaac’s ‘cello teased a concerted response from Anne Loeser’s violin, whose instrument then repaid the gesture in kind, and with Rachel Thomson’a piano delivering a “wait-for-me” catch-up repetition of the melody, bolstered by string pizzicato and augmented by an extension of the opening phrase which the players drew out and varied in turns with ease and fluency. After this bright-eyed and bushy-tailed opening, how mysterious and “inner world-like” seemed the Trio’s first utterances, the instruments “musing” among themselves in chromatic, canonic-like meanderings whose sequences then occasionally thrust their tones upwards from the miasmal mists with “Eureka-like” exclamations from all of the players together worthy of Archimedes of antique legend!!
These diverting irruptions completed, we were returned to the Scherzo’s sprightly dance as before. A brief revisitation of the chromatic musing sequences at the end produced no further “Eurekas” but a vigorously conclusive instrumental “Amen!”.
The heart of the work – and this performance – was the slow movement, whose every note seemed like a meditative commentary regarding human existence and its potentialities, which state of things Beethoven saw and felt despite his infirmities, and was able to realise in his music, increasingly so as time passed. Begun by the piano a hymn-like melody arched gracefully forwards and upwards as the strings joined in, echoing both “sections” of the melody introduced by the piano. Then followed the most exquisite set of variations in various guises and combinations, the composer’s invention seeming to take wing, whether meditative or playful, solemn or skitterish, every sequence calling to mind a mood or character whose source springs from the same life-force, and casting a spell over the music-making, one which a sudden, abrupt interruption swept away in what seemed like the twinkle of a cosmic eye, an impulse that straightaway set all existence dancing with nary a backward glance, imbued with an effervescent gushing of energies in which we found ourselves caught up and relishing! The jauntily-paced rhythms developed real schwung in places with fanfare-like flourishes tossed between the instruments, before a reprise of the dancing tune restored some order, exuding as much charm and gaiety as before – when just as whimsically, a mischievous will-o’-the-wisp spirit set our sensibilities on a madcap, near-vertiginous dance which left us tingling with feelings of joy and good humour. What a delightful experience! – an intoxicating combination of music, venue and presentation, special and treasurable!