Trio con Brio Copenhagen

Recollection and Joy

Works for Piano Trio

Gavin Plumley

There is a ghostly quality to the work of Bent Sørensen. And his interest in themes of fragmentation manifests itself in both the music he writes and the titles he chooses. In response, the Danish composer’s compatriot Karl Aage Rasmussen has described Sørensen’s output as “evoking lived lives and ancient dreams,” while the Norwegian composer Arne Nordheim says that “it reminds me of something I’ve never heard.” Ever since Sørensen emerged as an independent voice during the 1980s, chamber music has remained key to his output, though larger works have also appeared, written for ensembles such as the Arditti Quartet, the London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Modern, and Danish Radio, as well as for Trio con Brio Copenhagen.

A few years ago, the trio gave the premiere of L’isola della città, Sørensen’s triple concerto, in which an “island”—his description for the work’s three soloists—“tries to escape from the city’s shadows.” And these are the qualities that are equally present in an earlier, five-movement piece written for Trio con Brio, Sørensen’s Phantasmagoria of 2007, commissioned by the Franz Schubert Society of Denmark and dedicated to the players.

“It all began with the fifth movement, which originally was a tiny piece for cello and piano,” the composer writes. “After re-composing this little piece for piano trio, I worked, composed backwards—the fourth movement— third movement—and I finally got to the beginning of the piece. It all begins with the violin—solo—heavily muted but aggressive, and gradually the cello and the piano enter as shadows of the violin. The first movement ends in a dark shadow of an aria from my opera, Under the Sky. All five movements are full of shadows of all kinds. Shadows of fragments and traces of movements appear in other movements. Music, voices, instruments appear behind each other as a play of shadows. ‘Shadow play’ was the first title on my mind, but a shadow play can be more physical—the shadow can come alive—alive behind the shadows. Phantasmagoria is a shadow play in darkness, where contours of persons and music, voices and instruments—create adventures behind each other.”

Smetana’s Piano Trio in G minor Op. 15 is a similarly haunted work. It was written in response to the untimely death of the composer’s first-born, musically talented child, Bedřiška, known as Friederike or Fritzi. Born in 1851, two years after Smetana had married his beloved Katerina, Fritzi died of scarlet fever at the age of four, following a younger sibling to the grave. The couple were understandably overwhelmed by grief and Smetana threw himself into the composition of this Piano Trio.

Although it is not a purely autobiographical work, as with his later String Quartet, From my Life, there is no doubt that mourning hangs over much of its music, which was initially scorned by the critics in Prague but relished by Liszt, who “fell round my neck and congratulated my wife on the work.” No doubt, Liszt had responded to the quasiprogrammatic nature of the music and its successful distillation of the Smetanas’ mood, as it is powerfully introduced by the lone violin.

This theme’s urgent, snaking chromaticism and breathless plunging octaves set the tone for the opening Moderato assai and much of the Trio as a whole. Particularly “pathétique” is the voice of the piano, with its double octave melody suggesting an orchestral palette. And then the rhythmically lopsided second subject seems almost ignorant of what has gone before, the harmonic language having clarified entirely, though each statement of this new theme is trailed by a regretful cadence. The development, on the other hand, is much more fragmentary, with each of the players given moments of reflection and recollection, underlying the rather schizophrenic nature of this movement, though that is hardly surprising, given the composer’s mental state at the time.

The Allegro that follows remains preoccupied with the ghost of the violin solo that launched the opening movement, now turned into a bouncing scherzo. And for all its claims of “ma non agitato,” the first section is decidedly restive. Not so what follows, where a salon-like atmosphere is conjured by violin and piano, with the cello delivering supportive pizzicato. When the cello is then given the melodic honors, the violin spins enchanting decorations, before the piano turns more pensive, with a hint of the whimsical cadences from the second subject in the first movement. The inevitable return of the scherzo theme is cut surprisingly short, turning instead to an imposing Maestoso in E-flat major, before an equally unanticipated conclusion in G major, with further moments of pause and reflection.

The beginning of the tarantella-like finale was lifted almost verbatim from Smetana’s earlier Piano Sonata in G minor, hence the initial dominance of the keyboard. But when the strings finally take charge, the dance is given an even more furious edge, setting up marked contrasts with the nostalgic episodes that testify to the programmatic nature of this unusual but powerful Trio.

In a program of music characterized by reminiscence, it is fitting to return to the fons et origo of the 19th-century piano trio. For it was Beethoven who, as with so many genres, revolutionized what he had inherited from his forebears. In his hands, the piano trio became a work in which the pianist was first among equals. Likewise, the scale of the genre expanded with Beethoven, not just in length but also in scope. As such, he provided a significant benchmark, though it is the “Archduke” that is justifiably considered the highest point in this impressive range.

The Trio was written between the summer of 1810, when the composer was resident in Baden bei Wien, and March 26, 1811, when he had returned to Vienna, where it was given its premiere on April 11, 1814. Beethoven was at the keyboard on that occasion, though the work’s sobriquet indicates that it was written with Archduke Rudolph of Austria in mind. The youngest son of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor, and brother of the first Emperor of Austria, Francis I, Rudolph had learned the piano and musical theory with Beethoven around 1803–4, followed by lessons in composition.

What began as a pedagogical relationship, however, soon became a firm friendship, with the composer dedicating 11 of his greatest compositions to the Archduke, including the Fourth and Fifth piano concertos and his “Les Adieux” Piano Sonata Op. 81a, written after the French attack on Vienna in 1809 forced Rudolph to leave the city. Later masterpieces dedicated to Beethoven’s friend included the towering “Hammerklavier” Sonata Op. 106 and the no less imposing Missa solemnis. In return, the Archduke helped secure the annuity that would support Beethoven in later life.

Fittingly, given the piano-playing dedicatee of the Trio, it is the keyboard that launches the work, with a note of disarming serenity. Any charge of Beethoven preferring motif over melody is refuted by the generosity of this theme, which is taken up with heartfelt kinship by both violinist and cellist. That is equally the case with the bouncing second theme, in the unforeseen key of G major, though this is not so much one idea as a host of contrasting thoughts bound by one mood. The movement’s disposition changes markedly, however, when we are taken into the development section, turning more virtuoso and, again, providing a vehicle for the pianist. Nonetheless, this is never to the disadvantage of the strings, who deliver the tenderest remembrances of the first theme, before it breaks down into delicate, whispered gestures. There follows another crescendo, but triumph is delayed until the coda. When it comes, it is justly celebratory, having turned the music’s composure into the healthiest of grins.

The scherzo is similarly smiling, a ländler with delicious cross-rhythms in its exchanges between the piano and the strings, who are given the task of launching the jig. As in the first movement, Beethoven also rejoices in the contrasts between long-spun lyricism and more chattering textures. But here, there are even more surprising excursions, including a sudden, lugubrious turn to B-flat minor, with shades of contrapuntal seriousness. This itself could be something of a joke —taking the word “scherzo” at face value—with chromaticism triggering further, extraordinary forays, before being shrugged off to return to the original dance, now given in a varied reprise.

And then comes one of Beethoven’s most sincere hymns, looking ahead to the final piano sonatas and the “Heiliger Dankgesang” and cavatinas of the last quartets. Its D-major theme is again subject to constant variation, in turn triggering recollections, no more poignantly than at the close, as well as suggestions of further potential areas of exploration and an affecting turn to the minor mode. In the end, however, all is confirmed by the trio working as one, in a final, rapt variation on the hymn.

The finale continues without break, revealing that, in that most heartfelt of music, there is the kernel of a last blast of high jinks (previously witnessed in the second movement). Indeed, if the Trio appears unified to this point, the last movement offers a contrasting dose of anarchy, no doubt nodding to Beethoven’s teacher Haydn. And yet this is no homage; it is, in effect, the chamber music analogue of the finale to the “Eroica” Symphony, composed five years earlier. Yet for all the irreverent, even mordant, humor that emerges—there are moments of cussedness too—there is a joyous inevitability to the movement’s return to the blithe mood with which the whole Trio began.