The Eroica Trio at the Auckland Town Hall

By WILLIAM DART

It's not often that Chamber Music New Zealand's visiting artists have such poster potential as the Eroica Trio. For a week now, it's been difficult to avoid running into images of these Classical Dixie Chicks, which may have accounted for the bigger-than-usual audience at Monday's concert.

Alas, someone might have chosen an opener with more pizzazz than Beethoven's Kakadu Variations. The work is well down my list of trio favourites and a rather reserved rendition did not convince me a reassessment was needed.

Energy was obviously being conserved for the Shostakovich E minor Trio, although, when Sara Sant'Ambrogio took up her mike, I steeled myself for the spiel. In fact, the cellist offered a model introduction, forging connections with the score on musical and personal levels.

In performance, the large venue was a liability - ideally, you should be metres away from the strings when they go hell-for-leather in Shostakovich's grim second movement. Still, there was much to admire in the cool, dispassionate way the women let the eloquent Largo speak for itself. On the debit side were the occasional unnecessary glissando and a few harmonics that didn't engage but the performance as a whole did.

Dvorak's Dumky Trio is a perennial charmer, overflowing with the Czech composer's love of life. The women skilfully navigated its volatile mood changes, and pianist Erika Nickrenz dispensed passagework in a gleaming whirl.

It was not difficult to see Sant'Ambrogo as the star here, showing the sumptuous tone that back in the 80s earned her a bronze medal in the Tchaikovsky Competition.

The audience appreciated the inclusion of September's Scars by the young Aucklander, Jenny Thomas. This work, which won Thomas the Composition Prize at Chamber Music NZ's School Music Contest last year, did not seem at all out of place between Shostakovich and Dvorak and the Americans treated it with the seriousness and sincerity it deserved.

Two Piazzolla encores were offered, the second a languorous and lovely Malambo. As this enchanting music unfolded, I wondered whether the trio should have checked their South American music satchel for a more inviting opening number.