PITTSFIELD — Aaron Copland called Gabriel Urbain Fauré “the Brahms of France.” But following a South Mountain Concerts performance on October 3 of the French composer’s Piano Quartet No. 1, in C minor, Op. 15, at least one patron wondered if perhaps it was Brahms who was the Fauré of Germany. In any case, the ingenious French composer, the program’s headline act, couldn’t compete with an electrifying performance of Beethoven’s Trio for Strings in G Major, Op. 9, No. 1, which had opened the show — but threatened to close it when the crowd jumped to its feet and exploded in the kind of shouting and whistling typically offered up to teen pop idols. One-third of the way through a chamber music concert, such an over-the-top display is a curious thing to see.
Beethoven’s Trio for Strings is a fun piece. Lots of people play it well, and lots of people enjoy it. But when Op. 9, No. 1 is played flawlessly, from beginning to end, the way the composer heard it in his head, then it is riveting from beginning to end, and getting that close to Beethoven is a little uncanny.
The crowd on Sunday, deprived last fall of all South Mountain presentations, had come prepared with boatloads of enthusiasm for the musicians on stage, cellist David Finckel, violinist Arnaud Sussmann, and violist Matthew Lipman, to be joined later in the program by pianist Wu Han. Lipman, on three days’ notice, was standing in for an injured Paul Neubauer, whose absence was a great disappointment to many, because he’s a star in his own right. Lipman needed about one measure of music to prove his worth, which was all the time he had, because the Beethoven piece demands flawless ensemble throughout.
They nailed it. They crushed it. They made us believe the piece had been composed expressly for them by someone living inside their heads. There would be no way of knowing it wasn’t.
But what piece on the program could possibly follow such a genre-defining work? Ok, so maybe this early work of Beethoven wasn’t genre defining — in its day. But it most certainly was genre defining on October 3, 2021, because Wu Han and David Finckel have made it their life’s work to define the genre of chamber music — or perhaps to greatly expand the definition it already had. As directors of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, these two powerhouses have, over a period of decades, had an enormous, worldwide impact on chamber music — old and new — and have actually helped shape how people think about it in the 21st century. Each season, they present about 200 concerts, lectures, master classes, and outreach events.
But, again, what piece on the program could possibly follow such a cheerfully audacious work as Beethoven’s Op. 9, No. 1?How about an even cheerier piece by Mozart? His Quartet for Piano and Strings in E-flat Major, K. 493, is the perfect foil for Beethoven’s sometimes solemn manner. And who better to play such happy music than Wu Han?
It worked. The crowd forgot about Beethoven’s Trio and lost themselves in a playful flurry of notes from Wolfie.
By the time Fauré came along, he had the place to himself, and the group played music, Piano Quartet No. 1, in C minor, Op. 15, that is quite a bit more difficult than it sounds. (Composer Bruce Adolphe says Fauré’s music is trickier than it seems, because it is so pretty.)
Performances such as the one given by Wu Han and friends at South Mountain are the stuff of legend. When a chamber music performance is both easygoing and insanely precise, the underlying substance of it has a way of penetrating deeply into the human psyche. That’s what it’s all about for Han, Finckel, and the people with whom they work. They are defining, in real time, the very essence of chamber music.
