Before performing at the Club musical de Québec on Sunday with the Trio of Spirits of Beethoven, the 3e Trio of Brahms and the Trio de Ravel, Philippe Cassard, David Grimal and Anne Gastinel were at the Salle Bourgie on Thursday for a Fauré-Schubert programme. Artists have turned their backs on traditions that are cautious in Faure’s interpretation and defeatist in Schubert’s vision.
For this Montreal event, French musicians have joined forces in the Piano Quartet No. 1 from Fauré to the violist Juan-Miguel Hernandez, to whom Philippe Cassard paid a strong tribute at the end of the concert. This Montrealer, visiting professor of viola at the University of Montreal, was a member of the famous Fine Arts Quartet from 2013 to 2018. He is also a pedagogue visibly recognized internationally. So here is another one of those totally unknown Montreal musical gems… For once, even on our part!
The Trio Cassard-Grimal-Gastinel gave him, and gave us, the most beautiful gift by choosing the slow movement of the 3e Piano Quartet, Op. 60, from Brahms. Hernandez’ round sound and supple playing blended wonderfully into the ensemble. His musical chameleon qualities had been identical in the tortuous Piano Quartet No. 1 by Faure.
Invigorating music
It is not at all easy to “get on board” in such a repertoire. Compared to the discographic hearing to which we are accustomed in Fauré, for example through the disc of the Trio Wanderer with Antoine Tamestit, a concert such as that of the Bourgie hall, gives another perspective. In the recording, a mass of strings generally lead a piano-colored speech. In the concert experience, the piano has a much greater presence. Propulsion and intensity take precedence over the interplay of textures.
We find this invigorating discourse in Schubert. There is a tendency to see Schubert’s later works as testaments of a creator between life and death. We were not at all in this pattern with Cassard, Grimal and Gastinel. There was first of all a framework and an internal logic, that of peregrination, which makes this Trio “a Great”a real parallel to the “The Great” Symphony. So the same idea of build, structure and ” Wanderung (journey) with expanded dimensions.
No time here for procrastination. Moreover, the most impressive moments were rather the 3e movement with a trio – central section – of a rather stupefying force (but logical in the sudden parallel between the Trio and the Symphony) and the piano-cello dialogues of the Final.
To hear the dynamic contrasts of this Finalwe thought back to an interview with Emanuel Ax on the Sonata D.960, again the ultimate Schubert. Conclusion in the eyes of Emanuel Ax: “The dynamic and expressive range in Schubert is more extreme than in Beethoven”. That’s what we heard on Thursday, in an admirable instrumental performance.
This may surprise, it may shock, but it makes you think.