Prague Chamber Orchestra, Eroica Trio team up

Marilyn LaRocque

Friday, Oct. 24, 2003 | 8:29 a.m.

The 32-musician Prague Chamber Orchestra performs without a conductor. The group was founded in 1951 by "soloist-caliber, first desk" (principal) musicians of each section of the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra. Antonin Hradil is artistic leader and concertmaster,

The Eroica Trio -- three fantastically talented, glamorous women -- have successfully stormed the male bastion of the "piano trio" and, in fact, have performed the Beethoven "Triple Concerto" that is on Sunday's program more than any other group.

The trio are Erika Nickrenz, piano, Adela Pena, violin, and Sara Sant'Ambrogio, cello.

The concert is part of the UNLV Charles Vanda Master Series.

Two works by Beethoven comprise the first half of the program -- his "Coriolan" Overture, Op. 62 (1808) and the Concerto in C major for piano, violin, cello and orchestra, Op. 56 (1803-1804).

Beethoven's "Triple Concerto" was reviled after its premiere in Vienna in May 1808, despite being introduced by Archduke Rudolph, his pupil. It was never performed again during Beethoven's lifetime.

Sant'Ambrogio termed the "Triple Concerto" the "cripple concert" for cellists. "It's very difficult, brilliant writing," she said, "with many moods -- masculine and strong in the first movement, then, in the second, a slow ascension to heaven, and, in the last, music that's fun and human with raw sensuality, down and dirty.

"There's a big, lush, exciting orchestra sound, like watching the finals at Wimbledon or surfing on big Kahuna waves off the north shore of Oahu. The three of us are the three heroines and, as protagonists, advance the action. With the Prague orchestra, with no conductor, it's like a grand quartet."

With no conductor to direct the musicians, how do they all play together?

"You really have to listen very hard, keep your eyes open to sense the music and where it's going," she responded. "There's also lots of interpretation through body language."

Sant'Ambrogio started piano lessons at the age of 2. When she was three, she discovered the cello. "I loved the cello, its size, its sound. Hugging it while playing it felt like a friend," she revealed. "The piano was more a piece of furniture."

By the time she was 4 she began asking for a pony and a cello for her birthday and Christmas ... "and not getting either," she remarked. At that age her parents gave her a violin, "thinking they could fool me,but I sounded like a cat in heat playing violin, so I traded it with my older sister for a book of fairy tales. When I was 6, my parents noticed my big feet and figured my hands would catch up. So they gave me a half-size cello."

It isn't surprising she adopted the cello. Her father, John, is principal cellist of the St. Louis Symphony. She was accepted at Curtis Institute at 16 and completed high school there with tutors while honing her skills.

Then Leonard Rose, the famous cellist, heard her play, and she became his pupil at Juilliard. Sant'Ambrogio and pianist Nickrenz met and began playing duets together at summer music camp when they were 12. Both Nickrenz and violinist Pena lived in Greenwich Village in New York and began playing sonatas together when they were 9. All three women ultimately studied at the Juilliard School in New York, where they formed the Eroica Trio.

" 'Eroica' means 'heroic'," Sant'Ambrogio explained. "We liked it because it matched our style of playing -- big and passionate."

Eroica recently recorded the "Triple" with the Prague Chamber Orchestra, and the CD was just released on Angel EMI. The trio will be featured in a documentary on PBS Dec. 9.

The second half of the program fast-forwards 100 years to the music of Bohuslav Martino from East Bohemia and Ukranian-born Sergei Prokofiev.

As a child, Martino received a small drum as a gift. It became a major influence on his music, as did French Impressionism, Stravinsky, American jazz, neo-classicism and, very significantly, the English madrigal, a vocal style from the 16th and 17th centuries in which independent, yet related, melody lines play against each other.

His "Serenade No. 2 for Two Violins and Viola" (1932) reflects both the straight-line structure of madrigals and the rhythms of that childhood drum.

Although it was written at the time of the Russian Revolution, Prokofiev's "Symphony No. 1 in D Major, Op. 25, Classical" (1916-1917) is carefree and exuberant, not constrained by political dictates. It is one of the early examples of 20th century Neo-classicism.