The Neave Trio Rescue Obscure Treasures by Women Composers

The Neave Trio – violinist Anna Williams, cellist Mikhail Veselov and pianist Eri Nakamura – go looking more deeply for obscure treasures than most classical ensembles. Their previous album comprised the only known piano trios by Debussy, Fauré, and Roussel. Their new album Her Voice – streaming at Spotify  – is a rare recording of three pieces by pioneering women composers Louise Farrenc, Amy Beach and Rebecca Clarke. The ensemble are bringing those rarely performed works to life at Subculture on Nov 10 at 11 AM. Cover is $20; breakfast snacks (and presumably coffee) are included.

The first work on the album is Farrenc’s Piano Trio in E-flat Major, Op. 33. The first woman to teach at the Paris Conservatory, she was highly regarded as both a pianist and composer throughout the mid-19th century. Don’t let the relentless cheer of the opening movement fool you into thinking that this is just faux-Schubert: proto-Jeff Lynne is more like it. The devious playfulness of the piano and cello underneath Williams’ emotive phrasing is hard to resist.

The second movement has the same translucent appeal, more sedately at first; the Bach-like counterpoint midway through is a neat trick. Movement three shifts abruptly from a generic minuet to a nocturnal theme, rising from steady and muted to a bracing variation on the triumphant opening theme, Nakamura’s icepick precision contrasting with Williams’ phantasmagorical broken chords. The trio vigorously synopsize this confidently mainstream piece of mid-1800s classicism with Farrenc’s dynamically shifting final movement

Beach’s Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 150, written in 1938, is her last major work. Nakamura’s eerily starlit phrasing sails over the similarly uneasy strings, fueling a stern, striking crescendo in the first movement. The three musicians waltz with a ghostly calm through the opening of the second movement. It’s nostalgia in disguise, followed by lively, early Debussy-esque quasi-ragtime. They wind it up with propulsive allusions to boogie-woogie juxtaposed with unsettled nocturnal gleam.

As an early 20th century orchestral violist, Clarke broke the gender barrier in more than one ensemble. Her only piano trio, from 1921, is a stunningly powerful piece of music, a major work that deserves to be part of the standard repertoire. It begins with the same restless, rippling intensity as Beach’s trio, only more so, quickly receding to a brooding, Ravel-esque theme anchored by a belltone pulse. Veselov gets to play a more acerbic, prominent role here more than in the two previous works. Maybe because Clarke was a violist, Williams is similarly enabled to air out her incisive midrange for maximum impact.

The second movement has a gorgeous menace, coldly jeweled piano against stark string harmonies, along with an unlikely, Dvorak-like homesick quality. The marionettish dance and wounded longing in the final movement are as impactful as anything Stravinsky ever wrote. What a treat it is to discover this via such an impassioned performance.