The cultural city of Cluj tastes the autumnal flavours of music, combining the perfumes of the season beginning at the Music Academy (the 51^st season), the Festival of the State Philharmonic (reaching its 50th edition) and the programmes of the two (Romanian and Hungarian) opera houses.

At the Music Academy "Gheorghe Dima", a trio of mature instrumentalists – Melinda Béres (violin), Edit Horváth (piano), and Előd Kostyák (cello) – made a great stylistic demonstration on Haydn, Shostakovich, and Brahms pieces. The programme was good balanced, with the work of Shostakovich as the center of gravity. The A–Major Trio, Hob. XV:18 (1793) sounded related to Shostakovich’s op. 67 emphasizing its ludicrous characters, and of this modern work to the Brahms’ Trio op. 8 (the revised version of 1889), by their intense lyricism.

The playful Trio by Haydn and especially its final part (in Dorfmusikanten–style) was performed delightful – binding to a neoclassical view on the Shostakovich’s Trio, op. 67. Here, the hyaline manner of the introductory harmonic sounds of the cello remains unforgettable to me. Also the choral and lament-like Largo. And the bitter irony of the Jewish dance from the finale, or its so expressively intense thematic recapitulation. The impetuous second movement mirroring the specific attitude of his authors to tragedy of his epoch (1944) was played virtuosic – but it seemed to me that the audience doesn’t knew what it has to say. Therefore printed or introductory oral explanations would be still useful in public concerts. In the Trio op. 8 by Brahms, I would have wished a more powerful tone for the piano (especially in its broad sonata form of the first movement), but the instrument itself is not very appropriate for such desires. The delicate agility of the scherzo reminded me, in this version, Mendelssohn’s elfins music. The choral-alike Adagio was performed with the emotional power of a prayer (probably intended by Brahms himself, who composed this Trio under the feelings of Schumann entering to mental asylum – as Shostakovich, in his later Trio, taught to the death of his friend Sollertinsky). No gush, but austerity dominated the finale of the Brahms Trio, played by Béres, Horváth, and Kostyák.

The ensemble attracted a considerably numerous public – a meritorious fact, the more that at the same time, Carmina Burana by Orff was performed in our city. It is to wish that this piano trio group – that communicates so well and has a considerable stylistic culture – shall be fixed on the musical scene!


REZUMAT

Melinda Béres (vioară), Edit Horváth (pian) și Előd Kostyák (violoncel), sub egida Academiei de Muzică „Gh. Dima" din Cluj, au făcut o convingătoare demonstrație stilistic-interpretativă cu piese de Haydn (Trio în La major, Hob. XV:18), Șostakovici (Opus 67) și Brahms (Opus 8, versiunea a doua). Ar fi de dorit ca membrii ansamblului, care dau dovadă de calități individuale, stilistice și o comunicare exemplară, să își permanentizeze activitatea în această formație camerală.

* Foto AMGD.