Trio Galitzine, youthful masters of classical music

By Gus Kairupan [10 pts ML]

JAKARTA (JP): Trio Galitzine, consisting of Anne Mercier on violin, oboist Dominique Dournaud and pianist Alain Villard, are in their late twenties to early thirties, I'd say.

Biographic notes on these marvelous artists were lacking at their recent performance, which is something of a pity because one would have liked a little more information on the background of their musical development.

Not that biographic information is the all-important aspect of a musician's performance. As the sole art that exists in time, in music, it's the delivery of the moment that counts, not what comes before after.

In this performance, Trio Galitzine more than fulfilled whatever expectations each and every member of the audience may have had. The standing ovation afforded them testified to that.

This will be the third time in a row French musicians have been applauded as such by finicky Jakarta audiences. The stunning duo, Frederic Pelassy (violin) and Jean-Bernard Hupmann (piano), also received a standing ovation. So did the ravishing performance of the Da Ponte wind octet, still fresh in my memory.

What's more, all three ensembles were young, and it's this youthfulness, combined with maturity, that gives their performances an extra elan.

I don't think that the trio members have performed together for much more than a few years, yet the cooperation and compactness among them are what you'd expect from a group that has been playing together for decades.

Young they may be, they proved (as did Pelassy & Hupmann and the Da Ponte octet) that, at least where music is concerned, age has very little to do with maturity.

Acoustics

Trio Galitzine performed here under the auspices of the Centre Culturel Francais, Yayasan Pendidikan Musik, PT. Yamaha Music Indonesia and the Chopin Society Jakarta.

The concert was held on Wednesday in the Yamaha Music Center's auditorium, a hall of such splendid acoustics that even the slightest extraneous noise can cause a disturbance.

In fact, someone in the audience was feeding his or her child some candy--to keep it quiet, probably--and I heard later that the artists were disturbed by the crackling of cellophane and asked to have something done about it.

However, the culprits apparently left the concert during the intermission, and all went well afterwards, leaving only the occasional throat scraping which performers are quite accustomed to.

The program included four compositions, one each by J.S. Bach and Cesar Franck and two by Robert Schumann, with the Bach work--i.e. the Trio Sonata in C Minor for violin, oboe and continuo (roughly, piano accompaniment)--being the only one in which the three played together.

The excerpt of Bach's Musical Offering was originally written for violin, flute and continuo, the theme for it provided by Frederick the Great, who, besides being king of Prussia, was also an accomplished flautist.

The term continuo is of interest here because in the trio it has a more elaborate role than one would expect from a part based on what is known as a figured bass.

The Musical Offering was written in 1847, the final period of Bach's life, and occupies a place besides the Goldberg Variations and The Art of the Fugue as a monument to the art of music and -- equally important -- the education of music.

The works of Robert Schumann, Sonata No. 1 in A Minor for violin and piano, and three Romances for oboe and piano, I heard for the first time that evening.

Like Schubert, Schumann was a master of the lied, a German art song especially of the 19th century. All of his compositions are to be performed with melodic phrases that sometimes make one wish for lyrics.

It is such pieces that demand the one thing that counts uppermost in music: the ability to sing. And can Mercier and Dournaud sing!

All that can be said of their performance (Mercier in the sonata and Dournaud in the romances) is that the breadth and depth of their understanding is no less than astonishing.

So, of course, was that of pianist Alain Villard, a musician one would dearly like to hear in a solo performance. I don't know whether he does perform as such.

But on the other hand, he may well be a pianist who prefers accompanying; which, in some ways, is much more difficult than solo work, if only because one must bear in mind the roles of others.

As usual for performing group, the trio has also performed in other cities. The commendable custom enables more people to get acquainted with fine music, but in Jakarta's case, I can't help wondering whether just one performance suffices.

This city of almost 10 million inhabitants could well do with more than one, especially with a group the caliber of Trio Galitzine. The same thought occurred to me when Pelassy & Hupmann and the Da Ponte octet gave concerts here.

If the audience's reception last Wednesday is anything to go by, Trio Galitzine will undoubtedly be welcomed for a return performance with equal enthusiasm.

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