Washington Classical Review

Marta Aznavoorian and Ani Aznavoorian performed music for cello and piano Friday night at Wolf Trap.

Friday evening’s concert in the Barns at Wolf Trap was a family affair. Pianist Marta Aznavoorian accompanied her younger sister, cellist Ani Aznavoorian, in a program that surveyed music from five countries. The cellist, who also performs with Camerata Pacifica and Jupiter Chamber Players, even played an instrument made for her by their father, Peter Aznavoorian, who left his career as a chemist to become a luthier.

Throughout these selections, the cellist proved the star of this show. In Debussy’s Cello Sonata, a work slender in length but burgeoning in ideas and technical challenges, Ani Aznavoorian’s mercurial playing and dramatic sense of story-telling drove the three movements forward. The outer movements bristled with slapstick antics, while the pizzicato notes gave the feel of a guitar-led serenade, all characteristics of the commedia dell’arte character Pierrot, which Debussy may have used as inspiration.

In particular, the cellist’s intense, impeccably tuned sound on the instrument’s highest string marked the concert’s highest achievements. In Manuel de Falla’s Suite Populaire Espagnol, she gave delectable tone to the slow sections especially, the longing “Asturiana” and the serene “Nana.” Composed first as songs based on folk models, this set of character pieces highlighted the vocal quality of the cellist’s warm tone, especially in the top register.

Marta Aznavoorian’s piano playing, sincere and technically polished, served well in a mostly secondary role. In both the Debussy and Falla selections, her contributions felt lighter with a limited dynamic range. An air of caution seemed to prevent a needed fullness at the forte end of the spectrum, although there was an undeniable chemistry between the sisters that made their collaboration more than the sum of its parts.

Nowhere was this imbalance of partnership more evident than in Brahms’ Cello Sonata No. 2, the sort of piece where the two instruments must compete and challenge each other as equals. In the roiling first movement, overflowing with tremolos and other surging textures in the piano, there was never enough sound in the piano to match the cellist’s soaring lines. In the second movement, taken in disappointing haste, the occasional shallowness of the pizzicato cello notes made the pitch disappear too quickly.

Conversely, the third movement moved so quickly that the melodic aspects hidden by Brahms in the pianist’s right-hand part rarely came out enough. Both players tended to gloss over the metric dissonances characteristic of Brahms, a confusion of duple and triple rhythmic patterns. The trio, where the cello dominated, was most pleasing. The concluding Rondo sparkled, but again without that needed element of conversational give and take.

Paganini’s Variations on One String on a Theme by Rossini offered an ideal vehicle for Ani Aznavoorian’s playing. The Italian virtuoso originally created this showpiece for the violin’s lowest string, using the aria “Dal tuo stellato soglio” from Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto. Transferred in the cello arrangement to the lower instrument’s highest string, the effect was even more impressive. This performance featured all the necessary tightrope walking, including a singing A string tone, ghostly harmonics up to the top of the instrument’s range, and remarkably accurate left-hand fingerwork.

In the opening set of folksong arrangements by Komitas, all recorded on their pleasing 2022 album Gems from Armenia, the sisters gave a tribute to their Armenian heritage. The performers have spoken of their grandparents, who fled the Armenian Genocide to come to the United States, the same disaster that provoked Komitas’ mental collapse. The duo brought these simple pieces to vivid and melancholy life. The album also provided an encore in the same vein at the evening’s end: Alexander Arutiunian’s soulful Impromptu.

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center performs piano quintets by Arensky and Saint-Saëns, plus violin duos by Leclair and Viotti, 7:30 p.m. April 24. wolftrap.org