Austrian concert at the Kyiv Festival -

the Haydn Trio Eisenstadt

Programme

Joseph Haydn:

Piano Trio in A-flat Major, Hob.XV:14 

Allegro moderato

Adagio -

- Rondo.Vivace

Ludwig van Beethoven:

Piano Trio in C minor, Op.1 no.3

Allegro con brio

Andante cantabile con variazioni

Minuetto (Quasi allegro)

Finale (Prestissimo)

interval

Wolfram Wagner:

Trio No. 3 (2004)

Prelude

Elegy

Three Miniatures (Notturno, Fughetta, Intermezzo)

Finale

Johannes Brahms:

Trio in C-Dur, Op.87

Allegro

Andante con moto

Scherzo.Presto

Finale.Allegro giocoso

J. Haydn (1732-1809): Piano Trio in A-flat Major, Hob.XV:14 

Joseph Haydn’s Piano Trio in A-flat Major Hob.XV:14 is a singular piece of music the composer wrote in 1790 and offered for publication to several houses, among them Viennese publisher Artaria even before commencing his tour through England. In December 1791 Haydn wrote a letter to Marianne von Genzinger in Vienna asking her to buy a copy of the Artaria print edition and send him a duplicate of it since the work had not yet been set for printing in England. Indeed, the trio was first performed on April 20, 1792, during the eighth Salomon concert – the piano part played by then 13-year-old Johann Nepomuk Hummel, who was conducting his great England tour – and was published in print by Longman & Broderip in that same year.

The first movement is a rather strange sonata movement, both in terms of form and of character: the development, almost entirely designed for harmonious and tonal effect, anticipates the almost meditative stance of some developments in later trios. Its second segment is written in B Major (!) and starts with a just slightly modified, but extensive repetition of the movement’s beginning. This entire, almost exterritorial part does, however, forge a link to the slow movement written in E Major (!), a very serious tri-partite piece whose middle part in e minor is a drastically figured variation of the main part. An open, dominant conclusion in D-sharp Major (enharmonic for E-flat Major) leads up to the finale without any interruption. The latter consists of a sonata movement-Rondo in a robust style providing the necessary ease of tension after the extravaganzas of the previous movements.

Dr.Gerhard Winkler

L.v. Beethoven (1770-1827): Piano Trio in C minor, Op.1 no.3

The Piano Trios of Op.1, dedicated do Prince Lichnowsy, are not in any event Beethoven’s first contribution to this genre, which was then still of recent origin.

In his early years in Bonn he had already composed a G major trio and then one in E flat, which so “mightily stirred” the Englishman William Gardiner, who was passing through Bonn, that he seemed to find “all other music tame and insipid”. For originality of invention as well as increasingly equal treatment of the instruments, however, the Op.1 Trios put the previous attempts in the shade. Now the cello also had emancipated itself more vigorously than before from its role as continuo instrument.

In the C minor Trio, even more than in the other two trios of Op.1, the young Beethoven abandoned the area of salon music. Beneath the surface of the stressful main theme of the Allegro con brio, defiant revolt and hidden menace can be heard straight away. After this boldly modulating first movement, nurtured on restless energy, the Andante, with its five variations on a song-like theme, keeps to comparatively conventional paths. The third movement, a Menuetto quasi allegro, turns out to be a typical scherzo with abrupt changes of mood and a capricious C major trio section, and there follows a scurrying Prestissimo finale.

Hans Christoph Worbs

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Trio C Major, op. 87

The Trio for Piano, Violin and Violoncello in C Major op. 87 by Johannes Brahms was completed in Bad Ischl in 1880, and, following several private performances, first performed in public in Frankfurt at the end of December 1882, with the composer himself playing the piano part. Following his piano trio op. 8, Brahms thus continued his series of great chamber musical pieces with this second work, one that set standards for the entire next generation of composers, and especially for the Second Vienna School: generally, the Trio op. 87 is a very elaborate work in terms of formal and thematic aspects, and a rather subdued, almost demure piece of music concerning the expression. The first movement with its four main motifs displays truly symphonic density crowded together in the smallest space. Despite all the skilful interweaving of themes, Brahms foregoes the usual repeat signs at the end of the expositions, probably because the recapitulation later on is almost an exact copy of the exposition. The second movement is based on a simple melody in Hungarian style, spiced with characteristic piano chords. Next come five variations; with the piano accompaniment rather than the theme being modified. The Scherzo, written in c minor like the slow movement, includes a segment in its main part that could best be described as a pianissimo apparition darting by, and is somewhat reminiscent of French horn romanticism in the Trio. The Finale, a sonata movement, provides a witty ending to the work by making sense of the diverse peculiarities preceding it: the main theme is harmonically as instable as the start of the Scherzo, and the development is less one of the themes than one of the piano’s accompanying chords, the recapitulation is likewise ironic, almost slavishly copying the notes of the first movement. Eventually, the work culminates in a final apotheosis as the end of a great Coda constituting almost a quarter of the entire work.

(giw)