Music and Dance Reviews : Borodin Trio Opens Coleman Chamber Series

In contrast to the thumping and sawing that can characterize the average piano trio, the Borodin Trio of Russian musicians provided an exercise in restraint and understatement at the opening of the Coleman Chamber Concerts series at Beckman Auditorium in Pasadena on Sunday afternoon.

This diminished approach may in fact have been occasioned by the always risky acoustical properties of Beckman. Depending on where you sit, what you hear is not always the sound that is being produced on the stage. It is therefore a bit difficult to determine whether the outcome was a deliberately contrived aesthetic or a matter of acoustical chance.

The musicians appeared to be discharging their duties faithfully. Except for the lack of effective sonority, Luba Edlina played the piano with enviable dexterity and smoothness of sound that effectively ironed out any extravagance of color. Rostislav Dubinsky’s violin sang lushly and sweetly, with a rather low-energy rhythmical impulse. Uli Turovisky never allowed his cello to rasp or groan and the ensemble of the trio was always perfectly meshed and synchronized.

It could have been a case of overcautiousness. Nothing ever got out of hand, and nothing ever soared. The smoothness generated monotony, and details were so microscopic that they often failed to make a point.

Arensky’s sweetly romantic, pre-Rachmaninoff, Trio No. 1 in D minor, Opus 32, lent itself well to this featureless kind of playing--it was suave and elegant, but stirred little active response. Brahms’ Trio in C minor, Opus 101, fell short of true Brahamsian vigor, though it developed a certain warmth in lyrical episodes.

Beethoven’s mighty “Archduke” Trio likewise offered lyrical pleasantries but very little heroic urgency. Like the earlier part of the program it was undernourished and short of adrenalin.