The Heliand Trio — an ensemble comprised of pianist Cynthia Huard, clarinetist Elisabeth LeBlanc and bassoonist Rachael Elliott — performed at the Center for the Arts last Friday.
The concert program explained their peculiar name: “Helianthus means sunflower, [and] we hope to bring light and joy to the lives of our listeners, through music.” With Friday’s stormy weather and the incessant drumming of the rain throughout the day, any simple tune would have brought “light and joy.” But instead of a simplistic concert, the trio performed their own unique program, “The French-Brazilian Connection,” which incorporates the two different cultures of Europe and Latin America.
The night began with the piano’s soft, expressive introduction into the first piece, “Danzon,” by a Cuban composer Paquito D’Rivera (despite Cuba being neither French nor Brazilian). As the trio’s first impression to the audience, it was inadequately executed. Typically performed with a cello in lieu of a bassoon, this piece is supposed to integrate the effect of intermingled expressive articulation of both the piano and the cello that is broken by the clear, sharp notes of the clarinet; however, as the trio’s two wind instruments uncontrollably dominated the piano, the group’s interpretation of the piece became expression-less and the performance failed to impress.
Interestingly, the concert — other than the pianist’s comical dropping of her music twice during a single piece — also included three solo pieces for the individual musicians. The clarinet solo, “Rhapsodie” by Debussy, unfortunately sounded like a constant stream of notes — executed with great technicality but without the important expressive elements of Debussy.
On the other hand, “Pièce en forme de Habanera” by another French composer, Maurice Ravel, truly brought out the warmth of the bassoon and the bassoonist’s ability to convey the emotional facets of the music.
Last to perform her solo piece, the pianist played her solo, “Choros No. 5, ‘Alma Brasileira,” skillfully. With many pianists, it is difficult to find the balance between being an accompanist and being a soloist; however, with the pianist of this “trio,” every piece sounded as if she was accompanying a duet of the clarinetist and the bassoonist. She seamed together different music passages of every piece nicely but when forced out of the background with the solo piece by Heitor Villa-Lobos, a Brazilian composer, she continued to sound rather passive — at least, too passive to define the meaning of Alma Brasileira, which means “Brazilian soul” in Portuguese.
The concert continued with pieces by Bill Douglas, a Canadian composer with Brazilian influences, and Francis Poulenc, a French composer. “Suite Cantando” by Douglas progressed between different movements that ranged in style from blues to classical. The piece was enjoyable due to the various arrangements of sounds while the “Sonata for Clarinet and Bassoon” by Poulenc clearly showed the harmony between LeBlanc and Elliott, who have been performing together for four years.
The bittersweet concert ended on a good note with “Fantaisie Concertante” by Villa-Lobos. Before starting the piece, the musicians warned that as a composition that combines different aspects of Brazilian culture, the piece could be overwhelming with its characteristic polyphony. However, the cycles between the confusing mixture of sounds and the intertwined harmony actually highlighted the group’s fortes as a musical ensemble: as individual artists, they were skilled although phrasings of certain passages were less fulfilling while as a group, they played wind pieces quite well. And so, the heightened parts of the winds and the gentle harmonious passages superbly completed the night and Brazil’s cultural expression.
Not having been widely advertised around campus for students, the concert’s seats were mostly dotted with the town’s residents, and although the performance wasn’t quite superb, students missed out on a free concert of eclectic performances that could define many of us — with our different cultures, sometimes clashing while at other times, harmonious and peaceful.
Trio brings touches of Brazil, France
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