"'One glance at Schubert's trio, and the miserable hustle and bustle of human existence vanishes, the world takes on fresh lustre', wrote an enthusiastic Robert Schumann in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik of 1836, at the end of a long 'critical survey' of various newly published compositions for piano trio. In fact, Franz Schubert's 'Trio in B-flat major, D. 898' had only just been published by Anton Diabelli as 'op. 99', that is, eight years after the composer's death. His other great trio, the 'E-flat major, D. 929' (op. 100), by contrast, had already been printed by the Leipzig firm of Probst during the composer's lifetime – although it is not quite certain whether Schubert had seen a copy of it before he died on 19 November 1828.
"Our knowledge of the genesis of and stimulus for the two works is as disparate as this publication history. With the E-flat Trio we are on firm ground – it was begun in November 1827 and premiered as early as 26 December, when it 'was received with extraordinary applause at my concert in a packed hall', according to Schubert's account to the publisher Schott. About the B-flat major Trio, on the other hand, there is only speculation. This too is certainly a mature work and may have been the earlier of the two (as is suggested by the opus number, which may well stem from Schubert himself ); but the situation is unclear and has given rise to conflicting theories. One thing, however, is incontrovertible: both trios are among the greatest works of the 'late' Schubert.
"Although it is always slightly overshadowed by its more dramatic brother, the 'Trio in B-flat, op. 99' is a work with a beauty all its own. As it happens, the tone of both trios – very unlike that of Schubert's late chamber music for strings – always remains engaging; the music historian Alfred Einstein (a cousin of the physicist) pointed out that they were, 'after the 'Trout' Quintet, the two works in which Schubert achieved the purest blend of the 'sociable' spirit with that of true chamber music'. The 'Trio in B-flat' is characterised by broad, sweeping melodies over what might be called 'organic' pulsating rhythms, as at the very beginning when the exuberant first theme, in spite of its expansive nature, is immediately repeated. After just two bars of transition – a solitary a'' on the cello – the second subject follows on directly: one of Schubert's most beautiful inspirations, which suddenly gives a conventional opening formula a poignant harmonic twist. If Schubert was stimulated here by the 'Romantic' Beethoven of the 'Archduke' Trio, he radicalised the older composer's procedures.
"Yet the piece is not all unproblematic euphony. Einstein drew attention to the similarities of the first movement to the song 'Des Sängers Habe' ('The minstrel's possessions'), D. 832, which begins:
Schlagt mein ganzes Glück in Splitter,
Nehmt mir alle Habe gleich,
Lasset mir nur meine Zither,
Und ich bleibe froh und reich!
And one of the characteristic piano figurations that makes the movement flow so smoothly is indeed anticipated in this song written in 1825.
"The 'Andante un poco mosso' is an affecting example of Schubert's 'organic counterpoint'. While the opening cello melody initially has a very simple chordal accompaniment, its recurrences are increasingly decorated with freely invented countermelodies and accompanying voices, which further heighten the melodic intensity: 'a blissful dream, reflecting the ebb and flow of deeply human feelings' (Schumann).
"More low-key, but no less expressive is the central part of the movement, which begins in C minor. The 'Scherzo', with its waltz-like middle section, in which the 'organic counterpoint' blossoms between the strings in similar, albeit more moderate fashion, and more especially the finale are shining examples of Schubert's technique of 'rhythmic-motivic working', in which a four-bar macro-rhythm (long - long - short, short - long) dominates the music over long stretches (and is already anticipated in the accentuation of the rondo theme itself, which plays a lesser role). Here it is not themes or melodies that occupy the foreground, but the actual pulse of the music, an eminently reliable companion, since it never seems to end. 'May his surviving oeuvre be a precious heritage for us!', Schumann concluded his review. 'However numerous and beautiful the progeny of Father Time may be, he will not soon give us a second Schubert.'
"Around the same time as this trio, Schubert also wrote an Adagio for the same forces that poses a conundrum. Was it the discarded first draft of a slow movement for the Trio in B-flat? Or a sketch for a planned 'continuation'? It seems hardly credible that Schubert would have composed such a large-scale movement simply as a freestanding entity. What is certain, in any case, is that when the publisher Anton Diabelli printed the piece in 1846 (long after Schubert's death), he arbitrarily added the title 'Notturno'. This name was probably inspired by the harp-like chords in the piano at the beginning, over which the violin and cello then enter with a slowly swaying, hymn-like melody in thirds. As so often with Schubert, this one-bar motion module (harp music in the piano, semiquaver anacrusis in the strings), once established, is maintained over long stretches, with strings and piano subtly exchanging roles – the last bar of the strings is already the first bar of the reprise of the melody, which is in fact to be entrusted to the piano, and the latter in turn anticipates the first bar of the brief coda, which moves into A-flat minor. Entirely different from this is the contrasting section, which changes not only key (E major) but even time signature (3/4), and strikes up an almost triumphal ascending melody over rushing triplets – as if the struggle were already over. That this is not the case is shown by the very subdued lead-back to the main section, which is decorated on its repetition with dreamy garlands in the high register. Finally – after the return of the contrasting section, now in C major – bright trills in the piano, twittering like birds, sound above the string melody in a short coda.
"Schubert's second great piano trio (op. 100) also adopts a more ingratiating, sociable tone than others among his 'late' works. The first movement is pert, even playful; a recurring turn-like figure developed from the swashbuckling main theme holds its diverse episodes together, but takes on brooding traits in the (pensively extended) closing group and even tends towards grimness in the development. The sad and tender second theme, which begins by modulating erratically into the third-related key of B minor and ends in E-flat major, also demonstrates in its way that in late Schubert there is always but a single step from sociability to solitude.
"The heart of this work, however – preceding the 'Scherzando', whose playfully light tone almost conceals the fact that its main theme is composed as a strict canon between piano and violin – is the slow movement, 'Andante con moto'. This has the paradoxical character of a C minor funeral march, but one that leaves an impression not of statesmanlike solemnity, but of deeply intimate melancholy (Schumann: 'a sigh that rises to shrieking anguish'); even the contrasting major episode seems more nostalgic than liberating.
"This movement is something of a special case. According to Leopold von Sonnleithner, writing thirty years later, a Swedish tenor named Isak Albert Berg gave 'exquisitely lovely' performances of Swedish folksongs while staying in Vienna in the winter of 1827/28. Sonnleithner adds that Schubert was so entranced by this that he used 'the most delightful of them as themes in the E-flat Trio'. This remark long remained puzzling, because scholars searched in vain for Schubertian themes in the folklore of Sweden. Only in 1978 was a manuscript of Swedish songs discovered in a Viennese library that probably contains copies of the repertory sung by Berg – doubtless less those elusive Swedish 'folksongs' than his own compositions 'in folk style'. One of them, 'Se solen sjunker' ('See, the sun sinks'), served as a stimulus for the bewitchingly beautiful theme of the slow movement; a stimulus, no more. The melody of the fine song initially shows little resemblance to Schubert's movement: the most noticeable borrowing is the repeated octave drop on the word 'Farväl' ('Farewell') and the subsequent concluding phrase. The compelling elegiac opening is wholly Schubertian. No one else would have been capable of deriving such a movement from this song.
We can get a precise idea of the genesis of the trio, and this movement in particular, because the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna preserves in its archives a draft score of the first three movements that comes from the estate of Johannes Brahms. It shows both great assurance in the overall design and some fascinating details that deviate from the final version. For example, the second group of the first movement was originally pitched a fifth higher; the 'Scherzando' began without an upbeat; and in the slow movement, before the entry of the melody in the cello, there were initially not two, but three bars in the piano drumming out the march-like rhythm. But in the 'Andante con moto' the differences are even more numerous and striking. The movement seems harsher, more angular, more troubled; many lyrical counterpoints and smooth transitions are absent, and in one passage the violin intones, over a surging chromatic run in the piano, a motif that unmistakably recalls the 'Fate' motto from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Was this movement intended as a funeral march for Beethoven himself, who had died on 26 March 1827, and to whom the music could in this way wordlessly bid 'Farväl'? If so, then Schubert subsequently obscured this reference, because along with many other changes he deleted the 'quotation' in the final version.
Schubert underlined the exceptional status of this movement by – uniquely in his entire instrumental output – quoting it at length in the playful finale, not as a foreign body, but integrated into its structure. In a passage of the first version, the funeral march theme was even combined in counterpoint with the repeated quavers of the finale's cheerful second theme – a not entirely convincing idea that he struck out of the final version. At the end, as if at the last minute, the gloomy march brightens up and emerges in the major key (a dramaturgical device frequently used by Beethoven but seldom by Schubert): Death and Transfiguration, as it were. It may be just a coincidence that this piece was premiered on the actual first anniversary of Beethoven’s death, in the only concert Schubert ever organised himself – but it is a highly symbolic one." (Wolfgang Fuhrman. From the liner notes.)
Performers: Andreas Staier, Daniel Sepec, Roel Dieltiens
1.1. Piano Trio In B-Flat Major, D. 898 Op. 99: I. Allegro Moderato
1.2. Piano Trio In B-Flat Major, D. 898 Op. 99: II. Andante Un Poco Mosso
1.3. Piano Trio In B-Flat Major, D. 898 Op. 99: III. Scherzo - Allegro
1.4. Piano Trio In B-Flat Major, D. 898 Op. 99: IV. Rondo - Allegro Vivace
1.5. Nocturne In E-Flat Major, D. 897 Op. 148: Adagio
2.1. Piano Trio In E-Flat Major, D. 929 Op. 100: I. Allegro
2.2. Piano Trio In E-Flat Major, D. 929 Op. 100: II. Andante Con Moto
2.3. Piano Trio In E-Flat Major, D. 929 Op. 100: III. Scherzando. Allegro Moderato
2.4. Piano Trio In E-Flat Major, D. 929 Op. 100: IV. Allegro Moderato
flac/16-bit
No comments:
Post a Comment