Music / Selby & Friends, Joyeux Anniversaire. At Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, April 11. Reviewed by NICK HORN.

Kathryn Selby on piano, with her current “Friends” Daniel Dodds on violin and Julian Smiles on cello, presented a historically and stylistically varied program of piano trios by WA Mozart, Alexander Zemlinsky and Maurice Ravel.

At the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, the close proximity of the musicians to the audience created an intimate atmosphere, with the full house paying rapt attention to the muscular and assured musicianship of the ensemble.

The program celebrated the 150^th anniversary of Maurice Ravel’s birth with a stunning performance of his Piano Trio in A minor  to conclude the concert. Ravel’s intelligent arrangement and open harmony creates a sense of space, allowing the contributions of each instrument to be appreciated. The music’s exoticism and rhythmic variation lends life and colour throughout.

The highlight of the Ravel trio, and the concert, was the 3^rd movement Passecaille. Its romantic counterpoint, beginning mysteriously at the bottom end of the piano, then passing from cello to violin, developing gradually in intensity, was simply mesmerizing. In the final 4^th movement, the sheer strength of Selby’s big, crashing piano chords at the climax took the trio to an orchestral level of dynamic colour.

Alexander Zemlinsky was a student of Bruckner, and a teacher of Schoenberg. There has been something of a resurgence of interest in his work recently. Selby observed in her informal commentary for the audience that for all three of these seasoned chamber musicians this evening, this was their first encounter with the middle-European’s high romantic masterwork, the Piano Trio in D Minor. But it has been worth the wait!

Right from the start of the 1^st movement, Dodds dug deep into his Stradivarius’ strings to excavate a stirring, rich sound blending with the cello in insistent statements of a majestic theme – surging in sonic waves over dissonant piano chords. In the second movement, the cello chased a snaky melodic line from the violin over a counter-melody on the keyboard. Rumbling from the piano in the middle section warned of the thunderstorms breaking in the last movement, ending with an echo of that memorable theme before the trio subsided into silence.

The concert opened with Mozart’s Piano Trio No. 5 in C. Unfortunately, this performance lacked the delicacy and finesse to make the most of Mozart’s quick-witted, mercurial writing. Selby’s playing seemed a little heavy, with Dodds producing an unduly sustained tone, although Smiles achieved an admirable lightness of touch. In the lively acoustic of the ACCC, the piano also tended to overpower the group.

Given the gulf between the sound of the modern grand piano and that of the early keyboards for which Mozart was writing, it might have been wise to close the piano lid for this piece. However, by the end of the evening, this slightly disappointing start had been well and truly eclipsed by some of the finest late-romantic chamber music playing one could wish to hear.