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St Mary’s Church, CratfieldSunday 14 August 2016

ANDRÉ TRIOJoseph André violin

Thaddeus André celloTristan Raes piano

Concerts at CratfieldBlyth Valley Chamber Music

Mr T.E.Allen, Peter Baker & Kate Hutchon, Sir Jeremy &Lady Blackham, Rachel Booth & Clare Webb, Philip Britton &Tom Southern, Mr & Mrs Roger Cooper, Prof.MJ & Dr CHG Daunton, Paul Fincham, Judith Foord, Shirley Fry, Tony Gelsthorpe & Gill Bracey, Carole & Simon Haskel,David Heckels, Andrew Johnston, Julia Josephs, Susan Kodicek &Judith Harrad, David & Deirdre Mintz, Dr & Mrs Ivan Moseley,John & Gloria Nottage, Judith Payne, Donald & Jean Peacock,Anthony & Sarah Platt, Ruth Plowden, Garth & Lucy Pollard, Jill Sawdon, Lesley & Barry Shooter, Derek & Rosemary Simon,John Sims, Paul & Caroline Stanley, Christine & Jack Stephenson,Alan Swerdlow & Jeremy Greenwood, Charles Taylor &Tony Collinge, Michael Taylor & Mike Nott, Mr & Mrs S.Whitney-Long.

Philip Britton (Chairman); Clare Webb (Treasurer); Alan McLean and Peter Baker (Concert Organisers – to the end of 2017); Gill Bracey, David Mintz, Kathrin Peters, Richard Quarrell, Christine Stephenson, Jack Stephenson andMichael Taylor.

Box office: Pauline Grahamtelephone 01728 603 077email boxoffice@concertsatcratfield.org.uk

Presented by Blyth Valley Chamber Music registered charity 1019300www.concertsatcratfield.org.uk

patrons

box office &mailing list

concerts atcratfield

on Sundays at 3.00pm

28 August: Charles Owen pianoBach, Chopin, Liszt, Ravel

11 September: Callino Quartet, Anna Dennis soprano &Alasdair Beatson piano

Webern, Schoenberg, Brahms

futureconcertsTickets for other concerts inthe 2016 season can bebought or reserved fromPauline at the Box Officetable, during the interval orat the end of the concerttoday.

trustees 2016

Since we started the season with a run of string quartets,concertgoers may now welcome a different combination ofinstruments – and those fond of the piano will find one today andin each remaining concert of the season.

The piano trio can trace its origins back to the three-movementbaroque trio sonata, in which the keyboard (harpsichord, thenfortepiano) started as the dominant player, the two strings playinga mostly decorative or supportive role. The arrival of the cast ironframe for the piano, enabling much higher string tension and amore powerful keyboard sound, as well as a wider range of bothtreble and bass notes, increased this tendency, but also thepossibilities for drama and contrast. Like the solo piano sonata,most piano trios composed after about 1805 adopted the ‘serious’four-movement shape which was already the norm for thesymphony (though today’s Fauré reverts to the three-movementform); and had moved from the salon into the concert hall.

The piano trio came into being as a genre at more or less the sametime as the string quartet – with Haydn and Mozart as theAustrian parents of both types of chamber music and Schubertand Beethoven as the leaders of the next generation. By themiddle of the nineteenth century, composers found ways to makeeach player a more-or-less equal participant in the music, just asthey had in the string quartet at the end of the eighteenth; andstring players gradually abandoning pure gut strings for thoseincorporating metal helped to offset the potential dominance ofthe piano. But composers who were also celebrated pianists – likeBeethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms – tended still togive the piano the lion’s share of the musical material. And thenotorious problems of balance between the three playersremained. In 1880 Tchaikovsky wrote: ‘I simply cannot endurethe combination of piano with violin or cello. To my mind thetimbre of these instruments will not blend’. He went on, twoyears later, to write his op 50, one of the longest piano trios everpenned...

Today’s concert illustrates different solutions to these challenges,as well as three stages in the piano trio’s development. Beethovenrepresents its classical coming of age and Mendelssohn the startof the Romantic period. Gabriel Fauré exemplifies its twentiethcentury evolution in France, following a national traditioncreatively nourished by Saint-Saëns, Debussy and Ravel.

If hearing any of the works in today’s concert makes you want tohave your own recording, here are some personalrecommendations:

Beethoven, Piano trio in B flat op 97 (‘Archduke’): would-becompletists will be attracted by the ever-reliable Beaux Arts Trio,whose boxed set of all the Beethoven piano trios, originallyrecorded in the late 1970s and early 1980s, contains five cds ata super-bargain price from Decca; for a single disc including the‘Archduke’, Isabelle Faust violin, Jean-Guihen Queyras cello andAlexander Melnikov (on a Graff fortepiano) are a multi-award-winning team (their disc also includes op 70 no 2), at full pricefrom Harmonia Mundi.

Fauré, Piano trio in D minor op 120: the Florestan Trio haverecorded the piano trios of Fauré, Debussy and Ravel on oneconvenient cd from Hyperion, now at budget price:‘Outstandingly imaginative performances, finely recorded’, saidClassic cd .

Mendelssohn, Piano trio no 1 in D minor op 49: the twoMendelssohn trios fit neatly on one cd and make an idealpairing, especially in the bbc Radio 3 ‘Building a Library’ firstchoice, from Julia Fischer violin, Daniel Müller-Schott cello andJonathan Gilad piano on Pentatone Classics at full price.

In our experience, two companies offer a good range of stock,keen prices and efficient service for buying classical cds onlinein the uk : www.mdt.co.uk and

www.prestoclassical.co.uk

The fastest delivery to Suffolk may come from Prelude Recordsin Norwich, www.preluderecords.co.uk, who are equally helpfulon the phone: 01603 620 170.

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today’sconcert

music on cdtoday’s performers andworks

in case of emergencyUse the door marked exit which is nearest to you and moveinto the churchyard, away from the church. If the churchneeds to be evacuated, one of the Trustees will make anannouncement and individual stewards close to where youare sitting will then assist you towards the appropriate exit.

Joseph André began playing the violin at the age of five, attendingthe Chambéry conservatoire and studying in Lyon until joining theRoyal College of Music, London. Returning to France, he obtainedthe Gold Medal Premier Prix in the class of Burkhard Godhoff atthe cnm in Toulouse. In 2002 he entered the ConservatoireNational Supérieur de Musique et Danse in Paris and studied withRégis Pasquier and Alan Meunier, graduating in 2006 withExcellence. He has won a number of international awards and hastoured internationally as a soloist and chamber musician; he wasthe leader of the Toulouse Chamber Orchestra before joining theOrchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in 2014.

Thaddeus André began cello studies at the age of five in Chambéryand in Lyon a year later. In 1995 he came to England to study withLeonid Gorokhov at the Royal College of Music and the YehudiMenuhin school. At the age of 11, after being heard by WilliamPleeth, he chose to study with him exclusively. He graduated fromthe Guildhall School of Music & Drama in 2007, next gaining aMasters of Music Performance and a Masters in Specialized MusicPerformance at the Hochschule der Künste, Bern, graduating in2012 with Excellence. Thaddeus has won a number ofinternational awards: in 2008 he was a finalist in the J&A BeareSolo Bach Competition in London and in 2011 the recipient of aDiploma di Merito from the Accademia Chigiana, Italy. He hasalso been invited to perform in public masterclasses, includingwith Johannes Goritsky and Antonio Meneses. He has performedas a soloist and chamber musician in venues throughout Europeand as a member of the Verbier Festival Orchestra. He is currentlyco-principal of the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire inFrance.

Tristan Raes obtained a gold medal at the Lille Conservatoire,then entering the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musiqueet Danse in Paris, where he obtained his Masters degree in theclass of Bruno Rigutto. He has won numerous awards includingsecond prize and special prize for a contemporary work at theMoravia music competition, first prize in the Nadia and LiliBoulanger competition in 2009 and in the Lyon Chamber MusicCompetition in 2013. In 2004 Tristan took part in recording thecomplete works of Poulenc for two pianos for Solstice, the cdbeing warmly received by critics. He has performed chambermusic and with orchestra in many festivals, such as the PabloCasals Festival, Les Piano Folies, Young Talents, Clé de Soleil andArs Terra. He has also performed at the Cité de la Musique, theSinger-Polignac Foundation and the Wigmore Hall.36

This is the first of Mendelssohn’s two piano trios and one of hisbest loved chamber works. As he was perhaps one of the mosttalented adolescent composers ever known (the first two stringquartets, the Octet and the overture to A Midsummer Night’sDream all pre-date his eighteenth birthday), this trio could becounted as a work of his maturity. In 1835, already well knownand celebrated in Britain, he accepted the post of chief conductorof the Gewandhaus orchestra in Leipzig. ‘I have now gained a firmfoothold in Germany, and will no longer need to spend half my lifetravelling abroad’, he said. In Leipzig he completed his oratorio StPaul (performed to a warm reception in both Liverpool andBirmingham); a year later he married Cécile, the daughter of aclergyman of the French Reformed Church, who gave birth totheir first son in 1838 and to a daughter in 1839 (three morechildren were to follow). This first period in Leipzig included thethree op44 string quartets, two psalm settings for choir andorchestra and this piano trio. And in 1843 the composer took theinitiative to found (with Royal support) the Conservatory inLeipzig, the first university music school in Germany.

In the trio, the opening and closing movements balance eachother in length and in pianistic brilliance, as well as in emotionaltension, though every movement has a strong sense of forwardmovement, propelled by an almost constantly moving bass lineand by Mendelssohn’s Bach-inspired contrapuntal skill. AsRobert Matthew-Walker suggests: ‘Perhaps the unfailinglycivilised and polite Mendelssohn could express [in the op49 trio]such inner passion as his social manners concealed – but never,ever, to the dramatic extent of his contemporaries Berlioz andLiszt’.

‘Agitato’ rightly describes the sonata-form opening movement in3/4 time, based in the ‘home’ key. The cello has pride of place atthe start and also introduces the a major second subject, boththemes being combined in the development. The b flat major slowmovement (marked ‘with movement’ and a metronome markingof 72 crotchets to the minute) has a Song Without Wordscharacter, with an eight-bar melody in the right hand of the pianopart later repeated on the violin. The brief d major scherzo in 6/8time (‘light and energetic’) is Mendelssohnian faery at its mostrecognisable: fragmentary scurrying figures and a sense of magic.The grand rondo-finale (marked ‘passionately’), was significantlyrevised before the first public performance (Leipzig, February1840), on the advice of Mendelssohn’s good friend and fellow-composer Ferdinand Hiller. It illustrates the composer’s masteryof piano technique and of a distinctive early Romantic idiom.

Programme text © 2016Philip Britton and BlythValley Chamber Music

today’sperformers

felixmendelssohn(-bartholdy)1809-1847

Piano trio no1 in D minor op 49 (1839)

Molto allegro agitato

Andante con moto tranquillo

Scherzo: leggiero e vivace

Finale: allegro assai appassionato

About 26 minutes

The Archduke in question was Rudolph of Habsburg-Lorraine(1788-1831), youngest of the twelve sons of Leopold 11, HolyRoman Emperor. Rudolph was ordained, in 1819 becomingCatholic Archbishop of Olmütz (now Olomouc in the CzechRepublic) and a Cardinal. He was also an accomplished pianistand as a young man had started studying composition withBeethoven, their meetings continuing until about 1824. Thecomposer seems to have been acknowledging a genuine friendshipby dedicating so many works to the Archduke: not only this pianotrio but also three piano sonatas, the Piano concertos nos 4 and 5,the Violin sonata op 96, the Große Fuge and the Missa Solemnis.

Op 97 is the last, and most expansive, complete multi-movementpiano trio Beethoven was to write; it fits into what is usually calledhis ‘middle period’, begun in parallel with the String quartet op 95(‘Serioso’). The trio was completed in 1811 but first performedonly in April 1814. Beethoven had with him the same long-termmusical colleagues, Ignaz Schuppanzigh violin and Josef Linkecello, as had given his pair of op 70 trios to the world six yearsbefore. But those who heard them rehearsing reported that hispiano playing was obviously affected by his profound deafness; hesoon abandoned performing in public altogether.

Richard Wigmore calls the first movement ‘grand, tranquil andtender’, with its opening theme on the piano alone, then joined bythe violin and cello, the writing using the full range of the cello’scompass; the music shifts to an unexpected g major for the secondtheme. Also to listen out for: a pizzicato duet for the strings againstpiano trills which grows in volume as if to lead to a recapitulation –but Beethoven heads in another direction, delaying therecapitulation. When the recapitulation does arrive, it sneaks indolce and pianissimo, though the main theme does eventuallyreturn in triumph in the coda at the very end of the movement.

The impudent and relatively brief scherzo which follows playswith a simple rising scale, turning this into an Austrian Ländlerdance; the movement’s trio (heard twice) starts with a fugatopassage in b flat minor which somehow turns into a salon waltz,with wild changes of key. The slow movement (‘at a walkingpace, but nonetheless with movement’) is almost as long as theopening movement and consists of four increasingly complexvariations on a simple hymn-like theme in d major; themovement ends with a slower coda, intense and intimate. Therondo-finale hints at café music and includes a presto coda in 6/8in a major in which, at almost the last moment, Beethoven pullsthe music back into the work’s ‘home’ key.

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interval

Refreshments are offered by a team from the parish, in aid ofchurch funds

Fauré, born the same year as the first performance ofMendelssohn’s second Piano trio, is remembered in this countryprimarily for his piano works, for more than a hundred exquisitesong settings and for the ever-popular Requiem (completed in1900). But his chamber music is equally significant: two violinsonatas, two piano quartets, two piano quintets, a single stringquartet and this, his only piano trio. As its date shows, what hecalled ‘my little trio’ comes from near the end of his life, eightyears after Ravel’s own extraordinary Piano trio.

Fauré had retired as Director of the Paris Conservatoire in 1920and was suffering from increasing deafness and declining health,worsened by his heavy smoking. As he said to his wife: ‘Thetrouble is that I can’t work for long at a time. My worsttribulation is a perpetual fatigue’. Despite those obstacles, theselast years were a period of sustained creativity, also including thesecond piano quintet, second violin sonata and the string quartetwhich he was wary of even attempting, anxious – like so manycomposers – about Beethoven’s legacy.

The first movement of this trio follows the long tradition ofsonata form; the f major andantino contrasts one subject in thestrings with another in the piano; and the final movement(showing no signs at all of fatigue, and with the feeling of ascherzo) is in rondo form, opening in 3/8 time. But more sensecan be made of the music by noticing Fauré’s undemonstrativebut subtle and polished language and the deft transitionsbetween keys, chords or even individual notes. That is where thecomposer’s ingenuity and uniqueness reside.

As Roger Nichols imaginatively puts it: ‘Following Fauré’sthought … demands the patience and attentiveness of Theseusfollowing the thread in his search for Ariadne. And at the end ofthe thought there are often miraculous moments of revelationwhen everything suddenly comes out into the sunlight’.Untouched though Fauré’s music always remained by theupheavals of musical language in the twentieth century –Stravinsky, Mahler, Schoenberg – his voice remains distinctive,refined and always elegant.

gabriel fauré1845-1924

Piano trio in D minorop 120 (1923)

Allegro ma non troppo

Andantino

Allegro vivo

About 20 minutes

ludwig vanbeethoven1770-1827

Piano trio in B flat op 97(‘Archduke’) (1811)

Allegro moderato

Scherzo: allegro

Andante cantabile, maperò con moto – pocopiù adagio

Allegro moderato

About 40 minutes