Exploring works for String Trio
With Louise away on a much deserved holiday to India, it was the perfect opportunity to hold another informal get together to explore some lesser known chamber works - but this time concentrating on pieces written for string trio. Apart from some well loved works by Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven and Boccherini, the string trio repertoire is a combination not known for it’s abundance - so we wanted to tackle some pieces which were a little bit off the beaten track in the hope of finding some hidden gems.
The first piece we read through was a trio in F (Op. 27 no. 2) by the Austrian composer Heinrich Von Herzogenberg. This turned out to be a piece on a large scale, displaying an impressive use of instrumentation as well as an often adventurous melodic feel. The first movement had a vaguely military sense to it, culminating in a disproportionately epic climax. This intense burst of music led onto an interesting slow movement which despite it’s innocent theme had dark undertones - clearly Von Herzogenberg was going through an obsession with the interval of the second. The less distinctive third movement led to a finale where innocence seemed to mingle with darkness, with a lilting theme that we all felt could have graced a horror film - before the final unleashing of elemental forces. This was an interesting work indeed and one which we are keen to hear the opinions of other musicians about.
In a lighter vein, we then moved on to playing Four Morceaux (Op. 5) by the prolifically talented French composer Benjamin Godard. These unpretentious, simple pieces had a lightness and charm which belied their skillful construction. The scherzo in particular had some champagne-like writing and put us in mind of the dexterity and grace of a ballerina.
Perhaps the highlight of our day was the third piece we played - a 45 minute trio by a composer by the name of Lindpainter. There was just so much music here that it really deserves a second play through to fully digest all the goings on in the pieces. A macho first movement with tender second subject had real direction with some highly effective triplet accompaniment - with the apparent influence of Schubert. From the style of the frontispiece on the sheet music, we are guessing that the work may have been composed in the 1830’s - but can’t be entirely sure. A dramatic minuet and trio is followed by a large andante slow movement whose sustained flowering is interrupted with bursts of activity in diminished changes. The epic finale had a virtuosic first violin part which was satisfying to play.
Next, we played a rather weaker work by a contemporary of Eric Coates called d’Orellana - which seemed strangely timeless in that it was heavily influenced by all manner of other composers (such as Mozart) despite being written in the 1890’s. We finished with a distinguished work by the slightly better known French Composer Jean Cras- and this is definitely one we will play through again at a future get together. We did not get a chance to play all of this trio through but it has some wonderful harmonic invention and seemed very promising - I am sure it will be the first on the stands next time!
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