Sunday, April 12, 2026, Gunn Theater at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor – An amazing program. The brilliant musicians light up the room. They are able to play together as though that is all they ever do. The music lifts the audience into each piece of music as though it was made just for the moment, moments of beauty. The trio performs together only about four times a year. Do not miss these concerts; they are usually completely filled.

The musicians: Alexander Barantschik, violin; Anton Nel, piano; Peter Wyrick, cello. The program opened with Piano Trio in A major, Hob.XV:18 (ca.1794), by Joseph Haydn. It was a delight. Haydn was a non-stop composer. In the last years of his life, he created his last three piano sonatas, twelve symphonies, at least twelve piano trios, and other styles of work. This era could be defined by the competition between the harpsichord and the piano – named the fortepiano which shows it can be loud and quiet. The piano had inherent aspects that were not expected. It could be more expressive and develop more color in the music. Allegra Chapman, writer in the program book, quoted Charles Rosen, “Haydn was working against history” and his piano trios became “along with the Mozart concertos, the most brilliant piano works before Beethoven.”

Throughout the piece, Haydn plays musical games with us. He will pause suddenly or change harmonies, and just when he seems happily to do something musical that is like walking on a tight rope upside down. Then, he returns to the lovely and maybe not so daring tune as though he never had worn swim fins. In his third and last movement, he employs a dance that is fun to hear and might make the audience adopt physical movements. The theme circles around and around. We are hearing serious music in the incredible inventions that Haydn enjoys, and then he includes his funny musical surprises. All of this is masterful even though he takes us through the modest sounds of a great composer.

Anton Nel played two solo piano pieces. They are both wonderful and totally different. Cecile Chaminade’s Theme varie, Opus 89 (1896) is gorgeous. Despite the ban on female artists, professionals, and generally kept at home. It was the Belle Epoque. Women had to be beautiful but not moving. She had composed symphonic music, and works  for piano, orchestra, and flute, she kept to making smaller creations. She published 400 works and was able to support herself. She toured in England and the US and triumphed in Carnegie Hall. A Chaminade Music Club in New York celebrated her and the club is still going. Her Theme varie was entirely her own composition with well designed, balanced variations which might surprise the audience with its beauty.

Nel followed Chaminade with Carl Czerny. When I was very young I had a piano book with that name on the front cover. I wondered what that composer-teacher would make. The answer was almost everything. Probably he was a special guru to many students; with his 1000 works he composed in every kind of genre. His own teacher was Beethoven and one of his students was Franz Liszt. The piece that Nel played with incredible greatness, was Variations on a Theme by Rode, La Ricordanza, Opus 33. I did not know who Rode was and there is a good story that goes with the name of the piece. Here it is: Czerny attended a performance in Vienna, in 1820. A coloratura soprano, she sang her own version of Air Varie, Opus 10; the music was a violin stage- stealer composed by Pierre Rode, also a violinist. Czerny was excited by the music he heard by  the singer, Angelica Catalani. Czerny wrote his own arrangement from his memory of the performance. The name of his work – La Ricordanza – means memory. He also wrote a book about improvisation, A Systematic Introduction to Improvisation on the Pianoforte. The piece has five variations, Parts from his Improvisation book are performed with adventures of playing the piano, challenging technique, how fast can his fingers go. He takes rhythms, slows down the tempo, has fun playing runs. The improvisation was written, no one has to jump on the variations which must have had a marvelous, almost endless discoveries of variation.

The Piano Trio No.1 in B-flat major, D.898 was written in 1827; Franz Schubert died less than a year after. This Piano Trio is lovely. It can be hard to hear the beauty of springtime while one knows that Schubert was writing it in pain. The composer, Robert Schumann also wrote about music for a journal. Schumann praised the Trio No.1 in B-flat major, “the troubles of our human existence disappear and all the world is fresh and bright again.” Curiously, nearly one hundred years later, Elgar wrote the opposite having gone through World War I. He said all the world will never be fresh and bright again. Schubert wrote music for a drinking song, Skolie. The song says, “As quickly as joy kisses us, death beckons us and it flies away.” There are places in which one might feel that a wishful attitude will take over; instead, it follows the flowers and recognizes their beauty. In the second movement, Andante un poco mosso, the cello brings in a melody which will lightly share with the violin. Soon, it retreats into minor-key. The sky shows its clouds, but there is no storm. Schubert delights in two dances, the waltz and the landler. There is nothing to bring us down. We may imagine we are at Schubert’s rooms with his music and happy presence. In the fourth movement, Rondo-Allegro vivace, we pass on any sadness. We live in our moment.

This concert has so much depth in the music selections. It opened with Haydn’s jokes and playfulness which he may create because he is made of music and only Papa Haydn could make these seemingly light weight rhythm changes and foolishness. It takes knowing a great deal to find this fun. The concert closed with Schubert’s beauty as the monster illness lurks behind him all the time. And yet, that is not what he wants to tell us, and he will not give up the flowers’ scent despite what he knows.