Dror Semmel, Matan Dagan and Yoni Gotlibovich perform late Schubert works at the Eden-Tamir Music Center, Jerusalem

Dror Semmel(Alex Kaplan)

Yoni Gotlibovich(Meirav Kadichevski)

Matan Dagan(Michael Pavia)

Following the Covid-19 closure of all public events, the Eden-Tamir Music Center, nestling in the magical village of Ein Kerem (Jerusalem), is back to holding live concerts. Two late Schubert trios featured in a concert of the center’s “Best of Chamber Music” series on May 29^th 2021. Artists performing were Matan Dagan-violin, Yoni Gotlibovich-‘cello and Dror Semmel-piano. Eden-Tamir Music Center director Dror Semmel opened the event with a few words on each of the works.

Despite his dire illness, Franz Schubert’s final year produced a canon of masterworks, among them, the final piano sonatas, the two massive piano trios and the sublime String Quintet in C major D.956.  His chamber music moves between sensations of rapture and despair, expressed with lush lyricism, with grandness of gesture but also with humility. The works for piano trio - the piano trios and the Notturno - were probably written late in 1827. What came to be known as the Notturno for piano trio D.897 was simply titled “Adagio” by the composer. It is thought to have been originally written as the second movement to the Opus 100 trio, then to be rejected by the composer. Although it does create an aura of night-time serenity, with its harp-like arpeggios in the piano supporting a hypnotic melody expressed by the two stringed instruments, it was, nevertheless, a publisher who decided to rename it. But does the single-movement work, one of the most eloquent examples of Romantic lyricism, not also express anguish and a sense of tragedy? Whatever their concept, the artists at the Ein Kerem concert gave the first tranquil slow-moving melody, the (recurring) subject of this rondo, plenty of rhythmic freedom, the subtly delayed onset of a phrase here and there allowing for a sense of discovery and spontaneity, then to be contrasted by the more assertive and glorious B-section.

Of Schubert’s Piano Trio in E flat major Op.100 D.929, Robert Schumann wrote: "A Trio by Schubert passed across the musical world like some angry comet in the sky."  A gigantic masterpiece, the full musical and emotional range as well as the ambiguity of this extraordinary work of genius present an ambitious undertaking to chamber musicians. Semmel, Dagan and Gotlibovich gave uncompromising energy to the work’s assertive opening gesture, their playing passionate but controlled, with the second subject providing lyrical respite. The second movement is a funeral march for Beethoven, with whom Schubert had felt a deep connection. Schubert had been a torchbearer at Beethoven’s funeral 1827. With the Andante movement’s sombre, haunting melody introduced by Gotlibovich, the full range of its elements was addressed – the introspective, the dark, the dramatic, even the angry and indignant, the latter perhaps expressed in the series of tremolos reaching an enormous passionate crescendo – the artists’ playing reflecting the chiaroscuro elements of Schubert’s palette. Then, as if sweeping aside this most desolate of slow movements, the sparkling Scherzando breathed optimism – carefree, congenial, charming, whimsically accented and dancelike - its middle section more massive in texture. As to the final movement - Allegro Moderato – it is fortunate that Schubert’s complete and unexpurgated original manuscript has been preserved; that was the version the artists chose to play at the Ein Kerem concert. The players showed the listener through its myriad of “scenes”, as they transported the initially relaxed theme into a rhythmically propulsive landscape of frequent modulations and metre changes, then to call back the wistful, soul-searching principal theme from the Andante, the trio ending on a bright, declamatory note.  When asked by his publisher to whom the work should be dedicated, Schubert replied: “This work is to be dedicated to nobody, save those who find pleasure in it.”

Playing with intelligence, the artists presented the music with straightforward and informed competence. For their encore, Dagan, Gotlibovich and Semmel gave another rendition of the E flat major trio’s  Andante con moto movement, revisiting it with both ardour and restraint, with poise and warmth of sound