Archduke

On the afternoon of November 28, I heard Beethoven's Archduke Trio performed by Revital Hachamov, piano, Lavard Skou Larsen, violin, and Ramon Jaffe, cello. I was thrilled by the performance and found myself thinking that this piece of music was one of the major monuments of Western Culture, and how unique that culture is, in that a piece of music could be even considered as one of its major achievements.

The concert was part of the wonderful "Etnachta" series, free concerts at the Jerusalem Theater almost every Monday afternoon, usually with superb musicians and great variety. We try to get to them as often as we can.

At this concert, I saw an acquaintance of mine in the audience, a Swiss man of roughly my age, who is very devoted to classical music, but I didn't have an opportunity to speak with him until the following Saturday morning at synagogue. I had a brief conversation with him then and told him how much I loved the performance of the Archduke Trio.

With his somewhat ponderous manner and German accent, he told me he actually hadn't liked that performance so much. You could tell, he said, that the musicians weren't used to playing with each other, and for a piece like that, you need an ensemble who play together regularly.

Essentially I agree with him. Artists who have gotten to know each other very well and who have discussed the interpretation of the music they play certainly achieve a higher level of performance than musicians who are brought together for a single occasion. However, I hadn't felt any lack of communication among the members of the trio that afternoon.

Besides that, I don't object to imperfection in a performance (possibly because I have listened to hours and hours of jazz over the years). At this concert, all three of the musicians were superb and totally familiar with the music, which they had probably played dozens of times with other ensembles. Since they were performing together more or less for the first time, they had to listen very carefully to each other, maybe more carefully than musicians who are used to playing together regularly. Because of their unfamiliarity with one another, they might have been surprised now and then, if one of them did something with the phrasing or dynamics that they weren't expecting, and they had to respond to this unexpected feature. So in a way they were creating an interpretation of the piece as they went, and that's exciting.

When you come down to it, I'd rather hear a live performance with some rough edges than a polished CD of a piece, with all the glitches edited out. Any live musical performance entails a degree of risk, and that's what makes it live.