Trio Navarro Sept. 29 in Schroeder Hall

DEMANDING PIANO TRIOS ADORN TRIO NAVARRO'S OPENING CONCERT

Continuing a decades-long search for innovative piano trio repertoire, Sonoma State’s resident Trio Navarro opened their current season Sept. 29 in Schroeder Hall with three works of mostly arcane and rigorous music.

Not rare of course was Mozart’s G Major Trio, K. V. 564, that opened the program in a buoyant performance with Marilyn Thompson’s warm piano sound. The Schroeder house instrument is voiced with less brilliance than the two stage pianos in Weill Hall, and the music sounded clearly even in the allegro’s fast legato passages that at times were joyful dances.

In the andante violinist Victor Romasevich’s unsteady intonation quickly resolved with many ascending phrases of beauty in splendid ensemble. This work, possibly arranged by Mozart from a piano sonata, received a reading that stressed musical simplicity and light touches from all three instruments.

Frank Bridge’s early Phastasie Trio in C Minor is anything but initially charming, with a potent opening phrase that then moved through five movements of continual tempo and mood changes. The Navarro stressed the mixture of percussive effects with surging lyricism. Here and there references to Arensky and Rachmaninoff could be heard, but just snippets, and there was a splendid duo with Mr. Romasevitch’s high register and cellist Jill Rachuy Brindel’s rich bottom sound. There is much harmonic interest and the composer gives each instrument the same theme to announce over perhaps 15 measures.

Near the end the Navarro played a big repetition of the menacing opening theme in dramatic phrases, and pushed the music to the end, albeit with several deceptive cadences. The response from the audience of 50 was tepid.

Following intermission Georgy Catoire’s F Minor Trio concluded the afternoon, a piece the Navarro has played before and the mood was moved from quirky drama to saturated romanticism with a Russian flair, with bit of Tchaikovsky, but so different. The allegro moderato is a high temperature movement where the ensemble never lets up. Richer violin tone was needed here, but Ms. Brindel played well the themes that are attractive but not easily grasped.

Momentum continued in the allegretto fantastico that is harmonically foreign to contemporaries (Dvorák, St. Saëns, Ravel, Liadov, Reger), the high point for me being an elegant held note in the cello over Ms. Thompson’s wandering piano configurations. The playing in the finale (molto allegro) found the trio building abbreviated and extended climaxes, with flourishes in the piano part. It’s a difficult piece to pigeonhole, unique and strange where a touch of Schumann’s chordal progressions and Rachmaninoff’s temperament appear.

The Trio gave a committed performance of a work that is difficult to get ones arms (or ears) around. Applause was temperate. There was no encore.
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