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<\/p>\nAs many of readers will remember, I\u2019m working this week at the Ischia Chamber Music Festival. I\u2019m in residence here with my colleagues from my string trio, Ensemble Epomeo.<\/p>\n
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(Mount Epomeo from the Covo dei Borboni, home of Ischia Chamber Music Festival)<\/p>\n
Of course, we\u2019re called Ensemble Epomeo because the group came together here on the slopes of Mount Epomeo, the stunning volcano at the heart of Ischia, during last year\u2019s festival. Our original mission was just to play one piece- the Schnittke String Trio. What an unbelievable piece to start with! As last year\u2019s festival drew to a close, David, our violist mentioned that, given how the rehearsals for the Schnittke had gone, we might actually have the makings of a trio and suggested we try to organize a few more concerts.<\/p>\n
All three of us have played in a lot of groups over the years, so we all were more than aware of what the odds are of a group of three players, no matter how good and no matter how simpatico, being or becoming a \u201creal\u201d string trio. The odds of failure are pretty high. Still, if you\u2019re lucky enough to play with good colleagues to fail is to still be pretty good, so we all agreed to give it a shot.<\/p>\n
For me, the reason I was hesitant and the reason I decided to give it a shot is one and the same- the fact that we\u2019re dealing with string trio, which I think of as by far the most challenging genre in chamber music. It\u2019s more exposed than a quartet, the parts are more difficult (composers mostly think in four voices, so in trio, somebody is almost always playing 2 parts at once), and the repertoire is slanted towards the most difficult corners of classical music- big Mozart, early Beethoven and Schubert. Having just done Schnittke, there is no guarantee Beethoven will also click.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, I\u2019ve played in wonderful quartets and piano trios where we had enough time and opportunity to have a good run, find a sound and cover some repertoire. I\u2019ve been pining for another quartet for over 10 years now since Masala finished up, and had ruefully assumed that ship had sailed, and had never really thought about string trio, but now that we\u2019re at it, I\u2019m excited to explore the genre.\u00a0 There are some advantages to this genre over string quartet and piano trio. It\u2019s amazing how much calmer rehearsals feel with 3 than with 4 musicians, and how much easier it is to play when all 3 instruments are string<\/em><\/strong> instruments, as opposed to 2 strings and a 9 foot cannon called a Steinway.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve been doing some concerts here and there throughout the year, but this week has been our second big immersion since last year, and we\u2019ve got a busy month or so of concerts in the UK and USA coming up. There are two things in particular I am enjoying- first, the repertoire. We\u2019re playing the astounding trio of Gideon Klein, the last work he finished before he was shipped to Auschwitz, and the Krasa Dance for Trio, also composed at Teresenstadt just before his deportation. More and more, I hesitate to mention the circumstances surrounding the composition of these pieces because I don\u2019t think they need any special sympathy or consideration as pure music. These are major, major masterpieces. I\u2019m sure that had Klein lived he would have been one of the most important figures in 20th<\/sup> c. music, on a par with Bartok, Shostakovich and Stravinsky.<\/p>\n I\u2019m also enjoying the different ground rules that come with being in a group. Often at festivals, the rehearsal dynamics are alarmingly similar to the dynamics of an orchestra rehearsal. Expect good preparation, insist on accountability, but on the other hand, work in broad contours, don\u2019t micromanage or nitpick, and try not to pick at scabs. In a \u201creal\u201d group you all agree that we\u2019re not just focusing on preparing a given work, but on creating a shared concept of sound and interpretation- investing the next concert while preparing this one.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n What this really means is that we do a lot, a lot, a lot of tuning work. I\u2019m like a pig in shit doing all this intonation. As a conductor, one has to remember you can only do so much tuning before revolt breaks out. Even then, the institutional dynamics of orchestra rehearsal mean that tuning work often feels (in spite of the best of intentions from the conductor) corrective and sometimes adversarial and punitive. The focus ends up being on the result. Also, with all but the best orchestras, there are always bound to be one or two unsolvable problems in a wind section\u2026<\/p>\n In chamber music, the focus is on the process, and in particular on giving everyone a chance to understand the harmonic function of what they are playing. That means you\u2019re not just getting things to sound \u201cnot out of tune,\u201d but on getting to understand, at a very microscopic level, how each composer works with notes, intervals and chords. I can\u2019t think of a better reason to call three musicians a group (other than the groupies). <\/p>\n