Juilliard Chamber Music: Ravel and Schubert

I went on Sunday afternoon to Juilliard's Morse Hall to hear one of the several chamber music recitals given that day.  The program at the performance I chose featured works by Ravel and Schubert.  Though these are both among my favorite composers, I was unfamiliar with either of the works performed at this recital.

The program opened with Ravel's Piano Trio (1914) as performed by Sissi Yuqing Zhang, violin, Yin Xiong, cello, and Han Chen, piano.  As the date of composition indicates, this work was composed on the eve of World War I and was hurriedly completed as Ravel prepared to enlist in the French army.  While one might expect the calamitous events transpiring throughout Europe to be reflected in the piece, there is actually no trace of turmoil in the trio.  It is instead a sophisticated chamber work appropriate to performance in the Parisian salons that would soon cease to function.  Although Ravel is known for his masterful ability at orchestration, some of his finest works are chamber pieces where he limited himself to only a few instruments.  The trio is in the traditional four-movement format - Modéré, Pantoum (Assez vif), Passacaille (Très large), Final (Animé) - but found its inspiration in a number of unusual sources.  The first movement, for example, is based on the Basque dance known as zortziko while the second movement takes its title from a type of Malaysian poetry.  Nevertheless, the final work is quintessentially French in its overall style.

The second and final work was Schubert's String Quartet No. 15 in G major, D. 887 (1826).  The musicians were Sissi Yuqing Zhang and Cathy Chia-Fu Weng, violins, Jossalyn Jensen, viola, and Yin Xiong, cello.  The composition of this work followed that of Schubert's two most famous quartets, the No, 13, "Rosamunde," and the No. 14, "Death and the Maiden," but the piece has never managed to achieve the popularity accorded those two earlier works.  That may be at least partially because it is not based as were the two previous on any of Schubert's well known melodies.  Instead, there is a definite tension in the first movement as Schubert shifts from major to minor keys.  This creates a nervous energy that puts the listener on edge.  The final movement, marked allegro assai, renews this sense of emotional upheaval and does not provide the listener any sense of peace at its conclusion.  In the end, this is an extremely powerful work in which Schubert can be heard seeking to expand the limits of the quartet format just as Beethoven was doing at roughly the same time in his own late quartets.  Schubert had begun his cycle in 1820 with the composition of his Quartettsatz that came to be known as the Quartet No. 12 and would reach its apogee in the great C major Quintet in 1828, the last year of the composer's life.  The No. 15 was another giant step along the way.