Trio Wanderer concert review | More than a well-oiled machine

Since the disappearance of the Beaux-Arts Trio around fifteen years ago, the Wanderer Trio has become one of the master trios of our time. His return to Montreal on Wednesday evening, at Bourgie Hall, is among the great chamber music moments of the year.

“Spring wasn’t easy,” says, deadpan, the violinist Jean-Marc Phillips-Varjabédian, announcing the encore, A spring morning by Lili Boulanger, a work played to the hilt by all the orchestras of the province in the last three years, but which gains a rare distinction when played in this arrangement made by the composer (it is first and foremost a work for violin and piano).

The hall on rue Sherbrooke was almost full to hear this French ensemble which has accumulated critical successes since its founding in 1987. On the program, two major scores for trio and one a little less common: the Threesome^o 1 in D minor, op. 63, by Schumann, the Threesome^o 2 in E flat major, op. 100, by Schubert, and Tristiaan arrangement of The Obermann Valley (a work originally for solo piano) by Liszt.

We can only agree with the biographical notes, which speak of the “almost telepathic complicity” of the Wanderers.

Accustomed to sharing the stage since Mitterrand’s first mandate (except for the violinist, who arrived at the start of the Chirac era!), the three musicians do not in fact need a multitude of signals to understand each other.

The most notable of the three is probably the cellist Raphaël Pidoux, whose father, Roland, actually recorded the Schubert of the day for Harmonia Mundi before the advent of the Wanderer. Its sound, which charmed us three years ago when a disc of Beethoven sonatas was released, is characterized by a pleasant density, particularly in Tristia, a slightly strange work (we are not writing for a traditional trio), but which has the advantage of putting all the musicians successively in the spotlight. Pidoux is just as remarkable in the famous Andante con moto from the Schubert trio.

Alongside the discreet but effective pianist Vincent Coq, the violinist Jean-Marc Phillips-Varjabédian is the rock within the trio. Accuracy, however, is not always there in Schumann.

It is in Schubert that the trio is most convincing. Not that Schumann should be thrown out the window, far from it. But perhaps he lacks a bit of abandonment, of “endangerment”.

It is true that Schubert is of a completely different nature, with generally moderate tempos far from the Schumannian outbursts. The first movement, done without repeats, is particularly remarkable, particularly the second theme, pleasantly insinuating under the flexible bows of the violinist and cellist.

If the other three movements are all just as exhilarating, we will remember more the second, gently furtive, despite its fairly fast tempo.

The members of the trio will give a free master class this Thursday, 11 a.m., still at Bourgie Hall.