Music Reviews : Stuttgart Piano Trio Plays at Cal State Los Angeles

The Stuttgart Piano Trio has been known locally more by reputation than by its concert presence--our misfortune if the performance the German ensemble delivered Friday evening at Cal State Los Angeles was representative.

However, the Trio has now given Los Angeles ample opportunity to make its acquaintance, offering four strong, varied programs in the area in the space of two weeks. Its Friday performance was part of the List-Glenn Institute’s concert series.

Pianist Monika Leonhard, violinist Rainer Kussmaul and cellist Claus Kanngiesser played with a remarkable blend of control and passion. At any given moment, their efforts sounded completely spontaneous, but within a carefully calculated context.

Their sound, collectively and individually, could rasp at times. Though capable of great, crystalline delicacy, the Stuttgarters seldom found--or apparently sought--a smooth, glossy ensemble sound.

That did not deny them a varied palette, however, which they put to canny use throughout their program.

Ravel’s Trio is a natural locus for subtle coloristic effects, and the Stuttgart three delivered a multihued, deftly etched performance. They also clarified all of Ravel’s rhythmic games with driving, yet thoroughly cohesive, zest. In textural clarity, interpretive point and sheer musical mesmerism, this was a cherishable account.

The Stuttgart ensemble projected the earnest energy of Schumann’s unaccountably neglected Trio in D minor with equal verve and assurance. Their direct, forward-looking approach probed intelligently, without exaggerated emotionalism, and made as much immediate structural sense as possible of Schumann’s sprawling work.

A piano-dominated reading of Beethoven’s E-flat Trio, Opus 70, No. 2, opened the concert. The playing was light and at times overly aloof, though the reserved, antique sounds of the strings/piano antiphonies in the third movement were completely apt and beautifully balanced.

The List-Glenn Institute produced an alert, attentive audience of mostly students, whose enthusiastic applause was well-earned. On such a generous, multifaceted program, an encore would have been anticlimactic, and none was offered.