The Lysander Trio graces the Island
The Lysander Trio performed on the Island on Sept. 1.
Labor Day weekend brought a huge crowd to the Presbyterian Church for a concert sponsored by the Shelter Island Friends of Music, featuring the The Lysander Trio.
The piano, cello and violin virtuosi are all Juilliard alums and have played together in the great concert halls of the world. Continuing this season’s theme of presenting performers from the far corners of the globe, the Lysander’s cellist and violinist both were born and began their studies in Israel. And their pianist, a professor of piano in Athens, Ga., at the University of Georgia, comes to the group from Belarus.
The Trio has performed together since 2011 and is blessed with the kind of expressive playing that makes even unfamiliar works sound immediately appealing and accessible. The program opened with music of Scriabin and Haydn, and, a rarely heard trio by Gabriel Faure with its moments both passionate and serene. While all of the opening works were substantial, they seemed to be hors d’oeuvres served in advance of the evening’s principal entree, the Schubert Trio #2 in E-flat, op.100, where the grandeur of its first movement is balanced by the haunting melody of the following Andante, one of Schubert’s most moving creations.
This performance was the fourth of the season’s five Shelter Island Friends of Music events. The final concert, on Columbus Day weekend, will present the “Four Cellos” in a program of works especially arranged for those instruments.
