A year ago, the pianist Emanuel Ax, violinist Leonidas Kavakos and cellist Yo-Yo Ma released a recording of the three Brahms piano trios. Outstanding soloists, their collaboration evoked memories of the great trios of an earlier era of recordings, such as the “million-dollar trio” of the 1940s, Arthur Rubinstein, Jascha Heifetz, and Emanuel Feuermann, or Isaac Stern, Pablo Casals and Rudolf Serkin, who played together in the following decade. The recorded performances by Ax, Kavakos and Ma had a touch of the same larger-than-life glitz about them, without quite the sense of collaborative intimacy associated with the finest chamber music partnerships.
Now the trio are touring their Brahms programme, and it was fascinating to compare their performances live with their recording. Technically, their playing at the Barbican was immaculate; ears adjusted quickly to Kavakos’s tendency, one that many solo violinists have, to play slightly sharp, “above the note”. There was never a sense of each musician doing his own thing, heedless of his colleagues, but in the first two trios – No 2 in C major, Op 87 and No 3 in C minor, Op 101 – everything seemed a little too well machined and contained. No one appeared to be leading or co-ordinating the performances, yet they dovetailed expertly.
That changed after the interval. The piano is perhaps more dominant in the B major trio, Op 8, and Ax’s pearled tone and twinkling fluency came to the fore. The gorgeously expansive theme of the first movement had just the right reassuring grandeur from all three players, and the hushed calm with which the Adagio opened was captured perfectly. Everything finally seemed as it should be.
