Glorious music captured with élan

Selby and Friends – Janaki String Trio. Fairfax Theatre, National Gallery. May 14.

Selby and Friends have successfully filled the gap left by the disbanding of the Macquarie Trio last year, and for this second concert for 2007 it was once again a capacity audience filling the Fairfax Theatre. It was also a highly receptive audience for what proved to be exceptionally fine performances.

The “friends” on this occasion were the members of the Janaki String Trio from California, and they brought something unusual to the program. Although there is a fairly significant chamber music repertoire for the string trio, there are not very many permanent ensembles devoted to the genre, and they contributed two distinctly different works to the first half of Monday night’s concert. First there was the String Trio (1990) by Polish composer, Krzysztof Pendereck, a concise two-movement work in which a darkly expressive slow movement us contrasted to a dramatic and sometimes neo-romantic second.

It received a fully committed and commandingly realised performance, and was followed by Beethoven’s String Trio in G major, Op.9, No.1.

Written as a set of three similar works during the composer’s early years in Vienna, this trio foreshadows his great series of string quartets, and was played with a springing vitality that beautifully conveyed the essentially youthful expression of the music.

The second half of the program was devoted to a performance of the lovely Piano Quartet in C minor, Op.15 by French composer Gabriel Faure, in which the members of the Janaki Trio were joined by pianist Kathryn Selby.

It was here that the program reached its peak, with this appealing work receiving an interpretive realisation of luminous beauty.

The first movement was powerfully projected with an excellent tonal balance in which the strings nicely matched the piano, while the scherzo sparkled as it should, and the haunting serenity of the adagio was realised with a suitably enticing warmth of expression.

Then the ardent and romantic flow of the final movement was captured with élan, bringing to a conclusion a performance of this glorious music that was as satisfying as it was memorable.