4 May - London Mozart Trio at St. John’s, Smith Square

The concert started with a duet by Colin Stone, artistic director of the London Mozart Trio, with his wife Mayumi Iida, playing Schubert’s Rondo in A major.  What a beautiful piece!  Colin and Mayumi played this in celebration of his birthday and it was wonderful to see and hear them play together.  They worked in partnership and their tones matched and flowed perfectly.  It was heart warming, moving and full of love; it became such a memorable piece for me.  The theme was elegant and some passages reminded me of the same composer’s famous duo Fantasy in F minor.  Schubert left many gorgeous pieces for four hands; what a genius and what a tragedy he died at such young age of 31 years old.

The Trio (Colin on piano, Sagi Hartov on cello, Krzysztof Smietana on violin) followed with Rachmaninov’s Trio élégiaque No. 1.  I noticed that the opening of this dark and intense piece had a strong resemblance to Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio.  Sure enough, Colin wrote in the Programme Notes that “the bare 5th at the opening of the work immediately recalls the Piano Trio of Tchaikovsky, as does the funeral ending.”  The 1st movement starts with the cello and soon the violin joins in.  When the piano theme comes in, the intensity is enormous and emotion emerges.

Trio No. 2 by Martinu was next.  Martinu was a Czech violinist who gave his first public concert at 15 and then became a student at Prague Conservatory from which he was dismissed for “incorrigible negligence”!   I wonder what it was he did that caused his dismissal?  After that he studied on his own – but he must have been awfully good to be able to be his own teacher!  The No. 2 Trio’s 3rd movement was awesome.  It is fast and restless all the way until climaxing at the end (except a short disruption by a slow section).  It was fun to watch the string players’ finger and bow works!

In the second half, violist David Greenlees joined the Trio for Fauré’s Piano Quartet No 1.  The Quartet was full of truly beautiful notes.  Eldred and I discussed later and agreed that we felt like we were being surrounded by millions of amazingly beautiful notes – and that is all we seek when we go to a concert.

It was such an enjoyable evening and we quickly greeted Colin and Krzysztof afterwards.  Or course, many of our members will see them at Breinton this coming Saturday, I cannot wait!