Live Music in Congenial Surroundings: Experience the Magic: You’re All Most Welcome!
February 10th saw the return of the English Piano Trio to Howgills. It’s hard to believe that they are playing in their 27th Season: Jane Faulkner (violin), Pál Banda (cello) and Timothy Ravenscroft (piano). Their repertoire has a broad scope, and they kicked off with a late Piano Trio by Joseph Haydn (always a good aperitif). Their introductions were exemplary. Jane told us that this was written after his experience of English pianos, which he considered far superior to those manufactured in Vienna. The first movement featured a delightful interplay of pizzicato strings with the sparking upper register of the keyboard, the second built upon an austere, almost unison, opening, while the finale includes a tremolo interlude, almost prescient of Beethoven’s ‘Ghost’ Trio (he was after all a Haydn ‘alumnus’).
Next came Celtic Prelude by Rutland Boughton (1878-1960), introduced by his grandson Ian Rutland Boughton. The composer found fame through his opera The Immortal Hour, now scarcely remembered. Celtic Prelude represented the musical dimension of the Folk Revival and the Arts and Crafts Movement: much of it was unison strings, with piano counterpoint, and the notations (which Ian read out) were in English (rather than the ‘sophisticated’ Italian). The piece was written in 1917, when the composer was serving in the First World War. Boughton considered the community ethics of Letchworth made it an ideal venue for his music, but Letchworth lost out to Glastonbury, decades before the modern Festival.
Beethoven followed, an unpublished trio movement, written for ten-year-old Maximiliana Brentano, whose Aunt ‘Tonie’ Brentano may have been the ‘Immortal Beloved’ of the letter discovered after Beethoven’s death. The piece affirmed the composer’s ‘Haydn mentoring’.
The Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) is unduly neglected. His brief Three Nocturnes may suggest Debussy, but draws on his Jewish heritage, with outbursts of Klezmer music of the Ashkenazi tradition of Eastern Europe. It would be good to hear Bloch’s magnificent First Piano Quintet (1923) one day.
After the ‘dry’ Interval, came a single work; Franz Schubert’s Trio in B flat, opus 99, written shortly before his untimely death, unplayed and unpublished for ten years, when it was lauded to the skies by Robert Schumann in his role as a music critic. The scale was symphonic (surely influenced by Beethoven’s Archduke Trio, opus 97). However Schubert’s melodic stream, maintained throughout its four movements, reflected his prowess as a composer of songs, with added structural sinews. In the 1920s the trio was a staple of the Cortot-Thibaut-Casals Trio who recorded it for HMV, truly a ‘Great Recording of the Century’, which ensured its popularity. The second Trio in E flat, opus 100 is less ‘iconic’ but well worth hearing.
The English Piano Trio vigorously rose to the challenge of the four movements, with the intensity of the strings providing an apt frame for the melodic character, which often appears poised on the edge of tragic overtones, even which nominally in a major key. The determination of the first movement led to an Andante slow movement, almost a lullaby, with the cello in the forefront. The forthright Scherzo emphasized the tonal duality of mood of the central Trio. The Rondo finale had varied interludes between repeats of the overriding theme. One brought pizzicato strings followed by tremolo to intensify the sense of impending tragedy.
Enthusiastic applause to the Trio’s performance throughout the playing of their comprehensive, contrasted and sometimes challenging programme brought a brief encore, a gentle adieu by Shostakovich. The ‘sections’ of the individual pieces of the programme suggest an overall Rondo structure with the Schubert Trio eliding into a Finale. This was a memorable concert was warmly appreciated by all.
Mervyn Miller, Letchworth Music Committee
Live Music in Congenial Surroundings: Experience the Magic: You’re All Most Welcome!
February 10th saw the return of the English Piano Trio to Howgills. It’s hard to believe that they are playing in their 27th Season: Jane Faulkner (violin), Pál Banda (cello) and Timothy Ravenscroft (piano). Their repertoire has a broad scope, and they kicked off with a late Piano Trio by Joseph Haydn (always a good aperitif). Their introductions were exemplary. Jane told us that this was written after his experience of English pianos, which he considered far superior to those manufactured in Vienna. The first movement featured a delightful interplay of pizzicato strings with the sparking upper register of the keyboard, the second built upon an austere, almost unison, opening, while the finale includes a tremolo interlude, almost prescient of Beethoven’s ‘Ghost’ Trio (he was after all a Haydn ‘alumnus’).
Next came Celtic Prelude by Rutland Boughton (1878-1960), introduced by his grandson Ian Rutland Boughton. The composer found fame through his opera The Immortal Hour, now scarcely remembered. Celtic Prelude represented the musical dimension of the Folk Revival and the Arts and Crafts Movement: much of it was unison strings, with piano counterpoint, and the notations (which Ian read out) were in English (rather than the ‘sophisticated’ Italian). The piece was written in 1917, when the composer was serving in the First World War. Boughton considered the community ethics of Letchworth made it an ideal venue for his music, but Letchworth lost out to Glastonbury, decades before the modern Festival.
More Beethoven followed, an unpublished trio movement, written for ten-year-old Maximiliana Brentano, whose Aunt ‘Tonie’ Brentano may have been the ‘Immortal Beloved’ of the letter discovered after Beethoven’s death. The piece affirmed the composer’s ‘Haydn mentoring’.
The Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) is unduly neglected. His brief Three Nocturnes may suggest Debussy, but draws on his Jewish heritage, with outbursts of Klezmer music of the Ashkenazi tradition of Eastern Europe. It would be good to hear Bloch’s magnificent First Piano Quintet (1923) one day.
After the ‘dry’ Interval, came a single work; Franz Schubert’s Trio in B flat, opus 99, written shortly before his untimely death, unplayed and unpublished for ten years, when it was lauded to the skies by Robert Schumann in his role as a music critic. The scale was symphonic (surely influenced by Beethoven’s Archduke Trio, opus 97). However Schubert’s melodic stream, maintained throughout its four movements, reflected his prowess as a composer of songs, with added structural sinews. In the 1920s the trio was a staple of the Cortot-Thibaut-Casals Trio who recorded it for HMV, truly a ‘Great Recording of the Century’, which ensured its popularity. The second Trio in E flat, opus 100 is less ‘iconic’ but well worth hearing.
The English Piano Trio vigorously rose to the challenge of the four movements, with the intensity of the strings providing an apt frame for the melodic character, which often appears poised on the edge of tragic overtones, even which nominally in a major key. The determination of the first movement led to an Andante slow movement, almost a lullaby, with the cello in the forefront. The forthright Scherzo emphasized the tonal duality of mood of the central Trio. The Rondo finale had varied interludes between repeats of the overriding theme. One brought pizzicato strings followed by tremolo to intensify the sense of impending tragedy.
Enthusiastic applause to the Trio’s performance throughout the playing of their comprehensive, contrasted and sometimes challenging programme brought a brief encore, a gentle adieu by Shostakovich. The ‘sections’ of the individual pieces of the programme suggest an overall Rondo structure with the Schubert Trio eliding into a Finale. This was a memorable concert was warmly appreciated by all.
Mervyn Miller, Letchworth Music Committee