Trio Ariadne in Weill Hall

LUSH ZEMLINSKY AND A PREMIERE IN ARIADNE'S WEILL CONCERT

Trio Ariadne played a riveting concert April 4 in Weill Hall as part of Sonoma State’s Music Department Spring Series. This concert had something juicy for all musical tastes. The program spanned centuries and moods with a Beethoven pot pourri, a world premiere from an Icelandic composer, and a lush late romantic trio.

The three women of the Ariadne: clarinetist Carol McGonnell, cellist Sæunn Thorsteindottir and pianist Elizabeth Joy Roe are thrilling artists on their own. Together they exude precision, color, expressiveness, passion and a visceral delight in playing with each other. They have spent this year in residence at Weill and Sonoma State, working with students and doing outreach into the community. Each of the women introduced a piece.

The program opened with Beethoven’s E Flat Trio, Op. 38, a version of the Op. 20 Septet. It’s also a country cousin to the more well-known Op. 11 for this instrumental combination. Ms. McGonnell gave an anecdotal morsel before each of the six movements, but the verbal humor was often matched by exaggerated playing. The movements ranged from adagios to andantes with a theme and variations, minuet, scherzo, presto. The stories ranged from apartment blinds, love life, hair and coffee beans, all reflections of the Bonn composer’s persona which cleverly matched the music. The different movements presented moods ranging from explosive bursts, frolicking humor, romps, quick mood changes, tender, lyrical, funny. In all a Shakespearean comedy, finely tuned theater, commedie delle Arte for the ears.

In some ways it was an odd programming choice but the Ariadne’s reading was convincing.

After intermission Ms. Thorsteinsdottir introduced composer Daniel Bjarnsaon, a past musical collaborator, and he wrote “Five Possibilities” for her. These miniatures created fleeting aural images rather like a haiku, here then gone, and were intended to give glimpses of other worlds of sound. Starting with a wild and exciting piece and ending with a lovely meditation hovering around a major triad, the five were alternatively captivating and intriguing. They had the intimacy of postcards from small worlds as opposed to the novel of a symphonic work. The “Possibilities” were in order a chaotic frenzied world; a quiet water scape drops on harmonies; a scampering pointillist portrait; a commentary on a note (savage) repeated high and low; and fog horn hollow over bottom of the piano’s low ostinato. There were slow vibrations, shifting and quiet harmonies and a late night slowly becoming dawn. It was completely effective, sustaining and lingering.

Ms. Roe introduced the Trio in D minor, Op. 3, by Alexander von Zemlinsky. This late romantic, fin de siécle trio was rich and dramatic in the way of Brahms and Dohnanyi. An intense, dramatic and lush Allegro was followed by lyrical beauty, the clarinet and cello weaving a fluid fabric over the piano part. The chordal melodies and unraveling arpeggios were sumptuous and dark. Each of the three instruments played their part exquisitely in this exciting and emotionally rich work. The third movement recalled a rustic landscape - rushing water, birds, swirling clouds, scampering animals - driving toward a huge climax, a glittering light coda to final definitive chords.

The Ariadne with guest violinist Joseph Edelberg are playing Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time" in Weill Hall on April 16 at 7 p.m.

Sonia Morse Tubirdy contributed to this review