November 3, 2009: A new approach to a Brahms piano quartet

I have approached past performances of Johannes Brahms' C minor piano quartet, Opus 60, as if "it comes close to being a piano concerto for 'very small orchestra.'"  Today's Noontime Concerts™ recital by The Metro Quartet (pianist Miles Graber, violinist Elbert Tsai, violist Tom Elliott, and cellist Robert Howard), however, suggested a different point of view.  Perhaps because Tsai and Elliott were standing, the impression was more of a "triple sonata" for violin, viola, and cello with piano accompaniment.  This physical layout decision may have been the latest innovative attempt to deal with the less-than-friendly acoustics of Old St. Mary's Cathedral (even in the absence of the noise of construction workers);  but the result was a new approach to the overall balance.  The piano is never secondary in any of the Brahms sonatas for solo instrument;  but the subject of the sonata takes the stage as a "first among equals," even when only two performers are involved.  In this case we had three such soloists and a piano commenting on all of their activities, individually and collectively, with all the richness of Brahms' sense of rhetoric.

This demonstration of a perfectly valid "alternative" approach to performing Brahms affirms a point I was trying to make yesterday about performances of the symphonies of Gustav Mahler, both "live" and recorded.  There is no such thing as a "best" performance;  nor, for any individual, should there be such a thing as a "favorite" one.  There are performances that may honor past performing traditions, which can be examined in terms of how they reflect on those traditions;  and there are performances that experiment with new approaches, which should be assessed in terms of what motivated the alternative and whether or not that motivation was satisfied.  In neither case is there an evaluation "metric" that will lead to any kind of rank ordering, just as no botanist would have any good reason to rank-order all of the varieties of orchids.  All that matters is that today The Metro Quartet performed Brahms in a way that allowed us to hear him in a new (metaphorical) light;  and it is occasions like these that make going to concerts such a delight.