Triple Time: Forming a Chamber Ensemble

Meeting someone familiar is an unexpected pleasure, especially at a new place of work. Familiar yes, but it took me a moment to place her. It was Orly, the clarinetist whom I had once played with professionally, now turned religious, wearing modest dress and a head covering. Who would have thought twenty years hence, that she and I would both be teaching at an ultra-religious Jerusalem conservatory?

Though the orchestral days of our youth were behind us, we both still longed to perform. So when Orly suggested a sight reading session with her pianist, I jumped at the chance. That first meeting, three professional musicians on a lark, felt so right that we decided to continue. And thus, on the spur of the moment, our flute, clarinet, and piano trio was born.

Though we launched into Bizet's Jeux d'Enfants , a delightful set of twelve pieces, and Saint-Saens' stormy Tarantella with great aplomb, we quickly realized our need for common ground-- musically and otherwise. Like many here in old-new Israel , each of us hails from a different country and , like turtles, each carries her worlds where ever she goes. Irena our pianist, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, was raised on Russian soul music like Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. I, who studied flute in the French Flute tradition, sometimes seem bland in comparison. Thank goodness, Orly, our Israeli-born and bred clarinetist, vigilantly monitors balance and tempos, averting an all-out cultural clash.

Though our lines of communication may seem blurred in theory, in practice we're working out the knots. Irena may count her beats in Russian and I plot my entrances in English, but we all know our way around in Hebrew. And of course, bellissima Italiano is our lingua franca. Truthfully, negotiating a mutual sempre forte or diminuendo is far simpler than extracting ourselves from our frequent verbal forays into Israel's religious and political minefields. In fact, tea- and-cookie-breaks aside, the less we talk, the better we play. A shared breath when starting a phrase, a raised eyebrow at an impending cadence, or a slight sway during a rubato speaks louder than words.

While interpretation poses few problems, finding suitable repertoire is something else. Our first program, in addition to Jeux d'Enfants and Tarantella, included Botessini's Theme and Variations and Shostakovich's Three Waltzes, all composed for our ensemble. By our second season however, though we scoured local libraries, we found little else originally penned for flute, clarinet, and piano. At that point, we realized that we would have to sacrifice musical purism for practicality. It wasn't a matter of quantity. We generally round out our programs with solo pieces like Poulenc's Sonata for Flute, Schumann's Romance, Op. 94 for Clarinet and Piano, or Scarlatti's piano sonatas. But facing a dearth of original flute-clarinet-piano repertoire, we begged Orly to transpose Baroque violin and oboe parts for clarinet. Initially, she was reluctant to bobble Baroque arpeggios on her definitely un-Baroque instrument. But she finally came around, improving her tonguing, finger technique, and transposition skills along the way. Today in fact, when pressed, Orly allows that she enjoys performing Baroque music almost as much as listening to it.

So these days, we unabashedly open our concerts with Loeillet or Telemann trio sonatas featuring flute, piano and clarinet. Or we go where many fear to tread, performing unorthodox arrangements of Bach trio sonatas, occasionally alternating the flute and violin (oops, clarinet parts) to accommodate our tessituras. Undoubtedly many composers, past and present, have arranged or written compositions expressly for our ensemble, but in Israel, they are hard to come by. And, as it turns out, not just in Israel. A fly-by-night trip to Patelson's Music House in New York City offered much promise but yielded only one prize, Michael Webster's arrangement of Bizet's Carmen Rhapsody (International Press). Webster himself is a clarinetist in a trio like ours. That says a lot.

To sum it up, over the past three years, Orly, Irena, and I, each very different, have become fast friends. Our lively rehearsals, discussions, and performances have not only deepened our musical pleasure, but also deepened our understanding of one another's lives.