Wigmore Hall
Schoenberg:
String Trio, op.45
Bach
(arr. Trio Zimmermann): Goldberg Variations, BWV 988
Frank Peter Zimmermann (violin)
Antoine Tamestit (viola)
Christian Poltéra (cello)
Schoenberg’s String Trio is well-nigh universally considered
not only one of the composer’s greatest works but one of the finest of the
genre (a notoriously difficult combination of instruments). So it sounded here
in this outstanding performance from the Trio Zimmermann. Febrile, disjunct,
and yet finding ultimate unity in that state, it unavoidably brings – and here
brought – late Beethoven to mind; this is music that, in Michael Cherlin’s words, ‘is full of abrupt and striking
changes of texture and affect as musical ideas are broken off, interrupted by
other ideas that are themselves interrupted’. It proved hyper- in almost every
respect: almost too much to listen to, yet so commanding of one’s attention
that one can do no other. Strange, unheimlich
ghosts of old Vienna danced before us, ghosts in anything other than a machine.
Schoenberg’s Lisztian form of several-movements-in-one, familiar also from
Schoenberg’s First Chamber Symphony, achieved both further compression and
further relief in a performance that made every phrase, indeed every note
count. The difficulty of the medium as such never really registered; rather,
this was a challenging, all-absorbing musical drama. And drama it was above
all, reminding me of words Schoenberg spoke concerning this Fourth String
Quartet, yet of relevance here too: ‘I said this time I must compose
like Mozart does it, without looking at all whether I see relations or not,
juxtaposing ideas. … The characteristic for Mozart is this interruption, I
would not be sure to contend that this is a higher or a more primitive
technique [than Beethoven]. It is difficult to evaluate this aesthetically. I
think it derived from his dramatic technique.’ Here, it surely derived from
Schoenberg’s too.
Bach’s Goldberg
Variations have received a number of transcriptions and arrangements. Some
have opted for supposedly Baroque forces and formations – which almost seemed hinted
at in Trio Zimmermann’s performance of the opening ‘Aria’, less so elsewhere.
Others have taken advantage of ‘modern’ possibilities, ranging from one of the
earliest in 1883, by Josef Rheinberger (revised by Reger), for two pianos, to
the 1938 orchestral version by Polish dodecaphonist Józef Koffler. More recent
contributions have included two for string trio, from Dmitry Sitkovetsky (1984)
and Federico Sarudiansky (2010). Sitkovetsky’s version came at a time of peak
‘authenticity’, when certain voices would frown upon any such reimagination.
Following his 2009 revision, he recalled: ‘When I first wrote my
transcription of Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations for string trio, in 1984, it was
both a labour of love and an obsession with the 1981 Glenn Gould recording. […]
Generally, at that time, transcriptions were out of fashion and I recall that
my own colleagues and managers were sceptical about such an audacious idea. Since
then, my transcriptions have been played all over the world and moreover they
have opened the floodgates of new interpretive possibilities for the piece,
which have included solo harp, wind instruments of all kinds, saxophone
quartets, Renaissance viols and even a fascinating concoction of Uri Caine,
among many others.’ First having played Sitkovetsky’s edition, the players of
the Trio Zimmermann subsequently decided to join this merry throng, offering an
alternative to Sitkovetsky, in a version ‘which is as much as possible neither
an arrangement nor a transcription, but basically an unveiling of Bach’s score
and its genius’.
I am not entirely sure
I follow that meaning, but there was certainly much to relish in the
performance. Following that curiously – I assume deliberately – ‘white’ Aria, something
more Classical emerged: doubtless as much a matter of the ‘Classical’
instruments as performance, yet a matter of that too, I think. Warmly expressive,
highly variegated, never lapsing into too-easy Romanticism, this was throughout
a performance in which procedures were clear – one could almost see,
Schoenberg-like, inversions in an imaginary score, as well as hear them – yet
also placed within a familiar, if never hackneyed schema of musical history:
viols occasionally behind it, especially in the minor mode, the (once-)central
Austro-German tradition in front. Endless invention was experienced, yet so was
the contemplative emotion of Bach’s Passions. Canonical variations maintained
the integrity of their own progression, yet also played a crucial role in
punctuating their companions. There was sadness to Wanda Landowska’s ‘black
pearl’ (no.25) without becoming overwrought; perhaps it might even have been ‘blacker’
at times. Whatever the truth of that, there was a splendid sense of release to
be felt in its successor, no.26, treated to richer, not necessarily more
Romantic, tone, as if Purcell were being recomposed before our ears. Bach moved
towards conclusion in very different ways, ever closer, yet ever reinventive,
the restatement of the Aria unquestionably an arrival rather than a mere
return.
