Performance: The Ogen Trio

School of Music, Sunday

Review: Heath Lees


This gem deserved a much better attendance. Formed more than three years ago, the Ogen Trio has developed an excellent ensemble, and the players' performance experience together has made them confident and engaging.

What impresses most is the genuine verve with which they attack every piece. Not for nothing do they name themselves "Ogen" or "fire." True, the intonation can be dodgy in places, but no one minds, since the commitment is total and totally shared.

And the individual contributions are extremely enjoyable. Dimitri Atanassov's controlled yet sweeping violin style is perfectly balanced by James Tennant's nicely poised cello, while Katherine Austin's dazzling pianism is a continuous tower of strength.

Opening up with Three Island Songs by John Psathas, one of New Zealand's most mature, outward-looking composers, the trio unleashed a powerful drive that carried them through the intense first movement to a deceptively simple-sounding slow movement, before the swirling, breathless, dervish-like finale.

After such elemental force, it was difficult for players and audience to ease into Ravel's neat and sophisticated brand of modernism, and there were some skittery moments from the strings.

But by the arrival of the second movement's oriental "Pantoum," the rich ebb and flow of the sounds were well in place, and the dark passacaglia of the third movement was externally bleak yet inwardly passionate.

And what dramatic flair there was in the supercharged finale! Here the small medium of the piano trio explodes into something gigantic. From the unforgettably Impressionistic sound-curtain of the opening to the last angry gesture, this movement suggests the apotheosis of the Piano Trio, half-heavenly, half-demonic.

Later, Schubert's B-flat Trio Op 99 was less successful, but completely genial, and musical to the last semiquaver.

Yes, a gem of a concert. Too bad so many missed it.