J. Nakamatsu J. Frautschi J.Manasse Feb. 25 (A. Wasserman Photo)

SPIRITUAL CHAMBER MUSIC MARIN TRIO CONCERT

It’s difficult to write without superlatives about Chamber Music Marin’s February 25 concert by the trio of Jon Nakamatsu, piano, clarinetist Jon Manasse and violinist Jennifer Frautschi. There aren’t a lot of compositions for this ensemble, and while Mr. Nakamatsu and Mr. Manasse have been a performing duo since 2004, the addition of Ms. Frautschi reaches back a few years.

The three instruments’ blended voices are uniquely warm and rich. Each is capable of a wide range of mood and emotion, harmonic adventures, percussive effects, and rhythmic complexities. When they get together, they’re almost unbeatable, but singly and in duets they present almost endless possibilities.

The program opened with Debussy’s Sonata in G for violin and piano, composed in 1917. It has always stirred me deeply, and to hear it performed with fierce and tender beauty by Ms. Frautschi and Mr. Nakamatsu was sublime. It was Debussy’s last composition, written when he was very ill with cancer. Ms. Frautschi introduced the work as kaleidoscopic, and indeed, it is brilliant and dark and violent and heroic. She pointed out that it and Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat, which we would hear in the second half of the program, were both premiered in 1918.

The three movements are full of impressionistic effects—rising and falling like emotions, eerie and atmospheric where Ms. Frautschi bowed over the fingerboard (flautando) rather than the bridge—the sound was like a Japanese flute. The first Allegro vivo movement was rich with sonorities ranging from ethereal slurs to fierce cries of pain. At the movement’s end the pianist played broken chords out of which the violin rose, evoking the roiling clouds of war. The second movement, Intermede Fantasque et leger, was tender, then playful, the piano line a dark energy, and the violin gathering force, ascending and descending, then a sensuous interlude, and return to the first movement’s motif. It was the saddest music—yet unutterably lovely. The Finale (très animé) was suspenseful, ferocious, thundering. The Sonata ended on a positive note, but a delicate sorrow seemed to persist.

Debussy’s Premiere Rhapsodie for Clarinet and Piano followed, introduced from the stage by Mr. Manasse, who opened his comments by saying to the audience: “Look at you music lovers! We love you.” He then explained that Debussy composed the work in 1910 as a contest piece for young clarinetists, “with everything that tests the clarinet player.” Debussy liked it so much that he later orchestrated it. It’s called “premiere,” but there was never a second rhapsody. The clarinetist advised the near-capacity audience to “create your own colors,” to compare this sonically impressionistic piece to Impressionist paintings. The opening piano octaves floated harp-like and turned agitated, then notes fluttered from a great height, while Mr. Manasse’s deft clarinet also fluttered, sparkled, sang in lamentation, split the air, and gathered force. Mr. Manasse is a master, like the other two in the Trio, and his performance was smooth as silk, making me wonder how those students from long ago wrestled with such a challenging piece. We have a hint of that from Debussy himself, who commented at the time that one clarinetist stood out—he had played with some emotion. Faint praise indeed!

Mr. Nakamatsu then returned to play Chopin’s splendid Andante Spianato and Grand Polonaise brillante, Op. 22. He captivated the audience with this bravura showpiece, playing with exquisite voicing and pedaling so that nothing was blurred or lost--it was all clarity and nuance. The opening short andante put me in mind of a sailboat on a calm sea, its inner voices and tempo balanced like wind in sails. It is a very Polish piece, juxtaposing power and delicacy, like a mazurka one moment and then a landscape seen through the window of a racing train. Mr. Nakamatsu’s left hand playing was restrained but always eloquent, and his ornamentation was celestial.

After intermission, the Trio performed the Suite from Stravinsky’s L’histoire d’un Soldat, originally a theater piece created in Switzerland in 1918 for seven instruments, two dancers, and a narrator. It had a very short run back then, interrupted by a flu epidemic that emptied the theaters, but subsequently Stravinsky simplified it into a trio of five movements for violin, piano and clarinet. In this dramatic work, based on an old Russian story, the violin stands in for the soul of a soldier who has returned from the war. He meets the devil (the piano or perhaps the clarinet), who tricks him into trading his violin (stealing his soul) for a book with all the wisdom of the world. The piece, in five movements, is exciting and polyrhythmic when all three instruments play in different time signatures. There’s a series of dances when a sleeping princess is wooed by the Soldier-violinist, a charming section where the ensemble plays first a tango, then a waltz, then ragtime. The music moves from struggles for the soul of the soldier to the cunning of the devil. At the end of this fantastic tale the Soldier loses the princess but the violin changes hands yet again in a wild dance.

It’s difficult to think of a more joyful, life-enhancing piece than Milhaud’s Suite for Violin, Clarinet and Piano, the Trio’s penultimate offering. Three of its four movements are marked “vif” (lively) and this suite is full of life, with adventuresome polyrhythms, different time signatures, lovely melodies, humor, and musical nods to Brazil, where Milhaud lived for a time. It was a pleasure to hear from first to last. As Mr. Manasse said in his introduction, Milhaud, a Jewish immigrant from France who came to teach in Oakland at Mills College, composed for practically every instrumental combination (some 400 compositions). Two of his students were Dave Brubeck and Burt Bacharach. He once told Bacharach, “Don’t ever be ashamed to write melodies you can whistle to.”

The final work on the program was Two Rags for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano by John Novacek, and these were pure, unadulterated fun. Novacek is an acclaimed pianist and composer who earlier had composed Four Rags for Two Jons for Mr. Manasse and Mr. Nakamatsu. He added a violin to the mix, creating “4th Street Drag” and “Hog Wild,” a double treat that ended the concert with a bang and generated a standing ovation.