There will be six concerts in this series, all of which will be broadcast by Seattle’s classical radio KING-FM. Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, these concerts will be available live at the KING-FM website, and on concert nights I will lay out the schedule and provide a link to the concert. Chamber music can put a little light into people’s lives.
I’ll provide insights into the musicians if I happen to know them. I’ll also give a preview of the pieces to be played.
For Friday’s opening night concert, the first piece is the Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello in D minor, Op. 63, by Robert Schumann.
Bob Schumann was the German poet of the piano, much as Fred Chopin was the French poet of the piano. Most people who have studied music appreciation know the story of Bob ending his life by starving himself to death in a mental hospital at age 46. As to whether his bipolar disorder and eventual insanity were natural or the result of syphilis acquired from a barmaid in his late teens is still a subject of debate. He married Clara Wieck, the top pianist in the German-speaking world. Bob and Clara had a whole passel of kids, were very tight with Felix Mendelssohn and his wife, and they played mentor to the young Jo Brahms when he was first starting out.
Bob tended to do things in a manic way. He would spend a few years concentrating on writing songs, and then he’d shift his efforts to chamber music in a mad rush of creativity. This piece was written in so hot a manner that he interrupted the composition of his opera “Genoveva” to compose it.
The opening movement is marked in German, “with energy and passion”. He uses counterpoint right out of the gate when the opening notes on the violin are echoed by the piano in the bass at the second bar. This movement’s agitation is conveyed, not by forcefulness, but by compression. It’s breathtaking! The lyrical second subject in F opens up a bit into more counterpoint, this time a canon, and he brings the first subject in as a counter-subject on the cello. This is fine composing. He repeats the exposition and then moves into a huge development section marked by the use of the strings playing on the bridge while the piano scales the heights. This is the kind of strange sonority beloved of 20th Century composers, and here it was only 1850! He recaps and bases his coda on the first subject, making you think he is going to end it sweetly. But he brings it to a resigned conclusion in the minor.
With such a weighty first movement, Bob puts a scherzo in F in second position, marked in German, “lively, but not too fast. This scherzo is full of humor and high spirits, using a two-against-three overlay, one of those rhythmic tricks that Bob was to pass on to Brahms a few years later.
In third position, Bob writes a slow movement marked in German, “slowly with inner emotion”. This is one of his great, tragic slow movements, full of gloom and sorrow. The middle theme shifts to the major, and it has a sense of yearning that somewhat dispels the gloom. He returns to the first theme and then without pause, goes into a finale marked in German, “with fire”. This is a wonderful and uncomplicated rondo in D, full of faith and affirmation. The joy just leaps off the page!
This video is by the Clara Trio, a group of students at the New England Conservatory. These ladies are very, very good.
Thanks for the ping...I am listening now.
Nice....listening now.