Chamber Music Tulsa: Boarte Trio
Tulsa Performing Arts Center
March 8, 2026
Being new to these parts, I thought tornado sirens meant something, so I stayed home Friday evening and missed the Boarte Piano Trio’s concert at Renaissance Square Event Center, the opening performance of its weekend of shows hosted by Chamber Music Tulsa. The show went on without me, sirens be damned.
So I showed up for Sunday’s concert at the TPAC, and they graciously let me use my Friday tickets. I usually look up the music beforehand and give it a listen, but because of the date change I didn’t do that, so I was surprised to see a composer I’d never heard of on the Sunday program. Fitelberg? Who’s that? I was sure that the first two pieces, by Haydn and Debussy, would make up for the unknown element.
Haydn's Trio in C Major should have been an elegant, vivacious show opener, but the Polish trio underplayed and the sound was thin and pitchy. The dynamic level only reached mezzo-forte during the third movement. It sounded like they were afraid to bother us. Maybe they were a little siren-stressed, too?
I’m a big Debussy fan, so I hoped the second piece, his Trio in G major, would sound stronger. It did, a bit, as the performers—a Type A violinist, an intellectual-looking pianist, and a hunky cellist—seemed to adjust to the acoustics of the hall. They played with more fluidity and nuance, and the Romantic harmonies (this piece is from 1880, before Debussy heard the Javanese gamelan at the Paris world expo and moved toward impressionism) filled the space. Still, I continued to feel underwhelmed.
During intermission, I read the program and fretted. I learned that Grzegorz Fitelberg was a Polish composer, and that the Boarte Trio champions him, getting his little-known music out into the world. I also learned that the piece of his that they chose for this performance—the Piano Trio in F Minor, No. 10—clocks in at 42 minutes, twice the length of the first half of the concert, and 42 minutes is a long time to sit in the dark listening to unfamiliar music. I thought about skipping out and finding a nice happy hour situation.
Nevertheless, I persisted. And I’m glad I did.
Did the Boarte Piano Trio have a snack during intermission? Did they take vitamin B shots? Did their manager go full Moira Rose and slap them around? We may never know. But in the program’s second half, they were different. They were majestic.