The Frankly Music series continued last week with a concert of music by major French composers at its regular fall venue, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. Violinist Frank Almond was joined by cellist Julian Schwarz and pianist Brian Zeger.
Zeger, who has previously played on the series, opened the concert with three lovely pieces by Emmanuel Chabrier from his set Pièces pittoresques (Picturesque Pieces), played with elegance and a poetic touch. Almond and Schwarz played the great Sonata for Violin and Cello by Maurice Ravel, which was premiered in 1922 and dedicated to the memory of Claude Debussy, who had died in 1918. It’s a fabulous piece, using nearly every string-playing technique. But as is always the case with Ravel, the technical demands are so organically part of the content that they do not stand out as a showy display.
Schwarz, who is only 24, is an unusually good musician. His playing is equal parts passion and precision, with a darkish tone that is consistently beautiful. Instruments are by nature sympathetic to one another, and Almond’s violin tone took on rich warmth in combination with Schwarz. This was a terrific combination of players. It seemed that each brought out the best in the other.
The one non-French item on the program was by American composer Philip Lasser (b. 1963), with his Vocalise, very much inspired by French music. Almond and Zeger recorded it a few years ago on a CD entitled Portraits & Elegies. I recognized that when seeing it in the program but couldn’t conjure the music in my head. The moment the playing began it came back to me, with its long melody, reminiscent of something like the famous Pavane by Gabriel Fauré. This was Almond in his golden zone, spinning out a singing, lyrical line, with subtle touches of inflection that kept it soaring.
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I can’t say I was familiar with Fauré’s Piano Trio, composed near the end of his life, in 1922-23. Like most of Fauré’s music, it’s a combination of romanticism and Gallic restraint. The performance was colorful, sensitive and in every way persuasive.
