The piano trio conjures up images of genteel, chamber-music manners, but the Florestan Trio's interpretation of Smetana's G minor trio was a performance of visceral intensity that shattered any illusions of comfortable restraint at the Wigmore Hall.
Composed in memory of his eldest daughter, who died tragically when she was only four years old, Smetana's piece exists in a volatile emotional world that veers between mournful bitterness and aching tenderness. From the very opening, the Florestan players created a vivid, immediate drama.
Violinist Anthony Marwood's solo began the work with a searing lament that was soon amplified by the piano and cello writing. At the heart of this turbulent movement was a passage of stillness and nostalgia: a delicate, major-key melody at the heights of the piano's register, like a memory of distant happiness. However, this radiant image was darkened by the violin's pizzicato line and the cello's ominous ostinato, an expressive transformation that was completed moments later with the reprise of the opening theme.
But it was the finale that heightened the emotional tension to breaking point. The piano's whirling theme developed into a frenzied explosion, before the music was wrenched into another expressive world with the cello's lyrical, major-key theme. In the Florestan's performance there was a shocking starkness in the way these two types of music were set against one another. Towards the end of the piece the melodies were played together in a symbolic gesture of resolution, yet the tempestuous opening theme made one last appearance. The power of the Florestan's playing made the final cadence seem forced and contrived, as if Smetana's emotional and musical conflicts remained unresolved.
If the Smetana was an essay in individualism and unpredictability, the Florestan's performance of Mendelssohn's D minor Trio created a seamless expressive continuity. But they also found a quirkiness beneath the surface of this brilliantly polished music, in the flighty melodies of the scherzo, the song-like lines of the slow movement, and the ebullience of the finale.
