Gryphon Brings Bravura Spirit to the Piano Trio

You may regard the piano trio as the spinster aunt of the chamber music family, well loved but old-fashioned and stuck in its ways. If so, you have not met the Gryphon Trio. The Canadian ensemble made its local debut Friday at Mount St. Mary’s College and blew all the dust off its genre stereotype with big, bold, almost orchestral performances.

Not that there were any surprises in repertory. At home, Gryphon has been introducing new works by young Canadian composers, but here its business was Haydn, Brahms and Dvorak, mostly as represented on the group’s two recordings.

Familiar though it may be, Dvorak’s “Dumky” Trio remains strikingly original in spirit and shape: six movements, each modeled on the sharp contrasts of the Slavic folk-song type that gave the work its nickname. With their impressive and character-filled control of texture and tone, violinist Annalee Patipatanakoon, cellist Roman Borys and pianist Jamie Parker made the piece newly astonishing.

This is a piano trio that plays with strength and unanimity, not as aggressive as many young string quartets today but more polished and assured. Perhaps most distinctive is the Gryphon way with the ends of phrases. Many groups can initiate a corporate musical thought effectively, but on Friday, Gryphon accumulated deeply felt energies and released them with expressive finality.

More common virtuoso attributes--mechanical power, speed, agility and dynamic range--were also much in evidence, collectively and individually.

Haydn’s Trio in A, Hob.XV:18 and Brahms’ C-minor Trio gave the three ample opportunity to sparkle and thunder, which they did with stylish grace, never forced or frantic, although occasionally the sheer size of the Gryphon sound was more than the Doheny Mansion’s Pompeian room could hold comfortably.