Tim Homfray visits London’s Wigmore Hall on 15 January 2023 for the performance of Tarrodi, Mozart and Schumann
The Amatis Trio opened its Sunday morning concert with Moorlands, a ten-minute work by the Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi. The cellist Samuel Shepherd began, on stage alone, gradually joined by his colleagues, starting with violinist Lea Hausmann processing up the aisle and then pianist Mengjie Han. It was an effective piece of theatre for a work that gradually reveals a landscape imbued with deep melancholy and solitude, affecting played.
In Mozart’s Trio in C major K548 the musicians brought a touching gentleness after the bold opening statement, then offered real contrast, bright and robust. There was liquid melody from piano and cello near the opening of the Andante cantabile, and beautifully shaped phrases passed between them all. The final Allegro was effervescent, with vivid phrasing.
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As Shepherd said in an introduction from the stage, Schumann’s Third Piano Trio is seldom performed, and he suggested that the cello represented Robert Schumann and the violin his wife Clara. The Amatis brought dramatic flair to the first movement, highly coloured and often forcefully discursive. The slow movement was fluid and gentle around an extremely turbulent central section. The musicians kept a firm grasp on the constantly shifting, unsettled landscape of the third-movement Rasch and were suitably exuberant in the finale (mit Humor as instructed).
TIM HOMFRAY
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