Music Reviews : Pacific Trio at Pasadena Library

Saturday night at Wright Auditorium in the Pasadena Library the Pacific Trio performed a stylistically complete program of works for violin, cello and piano. The results left one knowing just how close the group is to attaining the pinnacle of achievement in this field--yet wondering why it is not more widely known.

Their strength lies in a collective willingness to sublimate any and all elements of individual performance. Violinist Endre Balogh lacks brilliance and power in his highest register, but compensates with an ability to match cellist John Walz seamlessly, particularly in octave passages.

Walz, possessor of a distinctively rich and warm low range, fails to generate all the power this quality would lead one to expect. And pianist Edith Orloff produces a velvety, rounded tone, albeit seemingly at the expense of prominent bass lines.

Haydn’s Trio XXI in C found the musicians at home in the Classical style. The group produced impeccably gauged balances and flawless intonation, and transformed the lyrical slow movement into an entity of matchless beauty.

The Trio in A minor by Ravel proved more problematic, particularly in the first movement. Balogh and Walz failed to make the stylistic leap from Haydn; the music remained earthbound and the playing seemed uncomfortable and less than idiomatic. However, the trill-filled finale found the trio hitting on all cylinders, resulting in a reading of abandon and passion.

What might have been a very special hearing of Dvorak’s Trio in F minor, Opus 65, was reduced to the merely memorable. For the only time in the evening, Balogh had problems with intonation in the opening Allegro, which suffered, along with the finale, from string-dominated balances. Still, the group achieved strong delineation of the cross-rhythms in the second movement, and seraphic heights in the Adagio.

The overflow audience received a single encore, an arrangement of Gershwin’s Prelude No. 2.