PIANO TRIO IN C MINOR, OP. 1, NO. 3Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

AllegroAdagio cantabileScherzo: Allegro assai and TrioFinale: Presto

PIANO TRIO NO. 3, OP. 122Lowell Liebermann (b. 1961)

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PIANO TRIO NO. 1 IN B MAJOR, OP. 8Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Allegro con brio—Tranquillo—In tempo, ma sempre sostenutoScherzo: Allegro molto—Meno allegro—Tempo primoAdagioFinale: Allegro

5june

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the program

35TH SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 9

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1trio solisti Maria Bachmann, violin

Alexis Pia Gerlach, cello

Fabio Bidini, piano

Pre-concert talk with Dr. Jeremy Gill, 4 PM

PIANO TRIO IN C MINOR, OP. 1, NO. 3Ludwig van Beethoven (b. Bonn, December 16, 1770; d. Vienna, March 26, 1827)

Composed ca. 1793-95, published 1795; 20 minutes

Around 1790, Ludwig van Beethoven began planning a move from Bonn to Vienna in order tostudy with his idol Wolfgang Mozart. Upon Mozart’s passing in December 1791, the grievingyoung german contacted Josef Haydn, Mozart’s friend and mentor, who agreed to acceptBeethoven for composition lessons. Arriving in November 1792, Beethoven had the goodfortune to find lodgings at the Lichnowsky Palace. At that time, the noble families of Viennacommonly let out their attic spaces, and Beethoven’s rented garret room put him under thesame roof as one of the most generous and devoted of that city’s music patrons, Count—andlater, Prince—Karl Alois Johann Nepomuk Vinzenz Leonhard Lichnowsky.

Prince Lichnowsky, who had known and befriended Mozart, immediately recognizedBeethoven’s talent. Soon, Beethoven was living in more comfortable quarters on a lowerfloor of the residence, and taking meals with the family. Furthermore, the Prince, who washimself an educated musician, set up a comfortable workroom for the young composer andbegan to feature him in the weekly musicales—every Friday morning—that he held in hisresidence.

A brilliant piano improviser, Beethoven immediately caught the attention of musical Viennafor his keyboard displays. His studies with Haydn were brief—neither of the men warmedcompletely to the other—but Beethoven was determined to become an accomplished,recognized composer.

In 1795, at the age of twenty-five, Beethoven launched himself in the publishing world with a set of three trios for piano, violin, and cello. Prince Lichnowsky, to whom Beethoven dedicated the Trios, helped to underwrite the enterprise and the list of advance subscribersincluded many of Vienna’s elite music patrons. The sales of Op.1, Nos. 1-3, were successfulfor all parties, earning Beethoven some money and proving his worth to Artaria for futurepublications.

When Haydn returned from his second London tour in 1795, he heard the Op.1 Trios at theLichnowsky residence, with Beethoven at the piano. While he confessed admiration for hiserstwhile student’s first published work, Haydn offended Beethoven by expressing reservationsabout No. 3, in C minor.

In his own piano trios, Haydn had continued the older practice of having the cello perform acontinuo role, doubling the piano’s bass line, whereas Beethoven liberated the cello to fullpartnership in the ensemble. Furthermore, the Beethoven trios, particularly the one in Cminor, seemed too bold in spirit to Haydn. And to top it all off, Beethoven’s Trios had notthree, but four movements, for he had inserted a Minuet and Trio, or a Scherzo into hisPiano Trios, a practice that Haydn had reserved for his string quartets.

Haydn actually advised Beethoven to withhold the Trio Op.1 No. 3 from publication, possiblybecause, in his ears, it was too advanced for the audience of that time. Since this was(reportedly) Beethoven’s favorite of the three, he ignored Haydn’s advice.

Beethoven cast the first movement, Allegro con brio, in sonata form, with a main theme insomber C minor and a contrastingly cheerful second theme in C major. He developed the entire first movement from these extremes. The Andante cantabile is a theme and five

Notes on the

programby

Sandra Hyslop

10 :: NOTES ON THE PROgRAM

Prince Karl von Lichnowsky(1756-1814) was one ofBeethoven’s most generousand loyal benefactors.Beethoven eventually dedicated to the Prince, not only the three PianoTrios Op.1, but also the “Pathétique” Piano SonataOp.13, the Piano SonataOp.26, Symphony No. 2 in D major, and the Piano Variations on “Quant’ è pìu bello.”

variations, which the composer concludes with a coda and a quiet ending. The third movement,Menuetto and Trio, creates an uplifted mood, with jaunty rhythm and melodic accents, as aprelude to the dramatic, emotionally pulsing Finale: Prestissimo. Although Haydn himselffrequently employed abrupt key changes and surprising contrasts in his compositions,Beethoven’s daring in this composition clearly confounded his Classic sensibilities.

PIANO TRIO NO. 3, OP. 122Lowell Liebermann (b. New York City, February 22, 1961)

Composed 2012; 16 minutes

Lowell Liebermann, a New York-born composer, pianist, and conductor, received his trainingat The Juilliard School, where he earned bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees. Aprolific composer, he works quickly and with care, and has composed works in many genres—operas, orchestral compositions, chamber works for many and diverse instrumentalcombinations, solo vocal pieces and choral works, piano solo, and more. They have beencommissioned, performed, and recorded by the world’s most highly regarded orchestras,opera companies, chamber ensembles, and soloists.

Trio Solisti premiered Lowell Liebermann’s Piano Trio No. 3, Op. 122, in Tucson in January2013. Liebermann has written about the Piano Trio No. 3:

Like my first two piano trios, this work is in one movement. The Third Trio unfolds inthree clearly discernible sections.

Its opening introduction features two cadenzas—one for violin followed by one forcello—which are heard over repeated pianissimo chords in the piano and which serveto introduce the work’s motivic material. The broadly lyric section that follows featureslong lines in the strings over a glittering ostinato in the piano. The final section of theTrio is a menacing and somewhat jazzy processional which bears the subtitle(“They’re coming…..”) in the printed score.

The entire Trio was written during a year notable for events which revealed some ofthe most disturbing aspects of American culture, events ranging from multiple publicshootings to the hate-filled rhetoric leading up to the 2012 election.

For me, the viewing of almost any news media these days seems to inspire an encroaching sense of paranoia and despair. I think some of this feeling crept intothe work’s final section, which has an undercurrent of pessimistic sarcasm runningthroughout. The Trio culminates in a climax which seems to be a musical embodimentof the triumph of banality, before it all comes crashing down in an abrupt ending.Individual audience members are invited to imagine a bogeyman of their own choosingto serve as the object of paranoia represented in this closing section.

PIANO TRIO NO. 1 IN B MAJOR, OP. 8Johannes Brahms (b. Hamburg, May 7, 1833; d. Vienna, April 3, 1897)

Composed 1854/1889; 40 minutes

The curious date of composition, “1854/1889,” is unique in Johannes Brahms’s works. Wellknown for destroying compositions that he found inadequate, Brahms actually allowed this

35TH SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 11

The works of the composerLowell Liebermann have been commissioned, performed,and recorded by the world’smost highly regardedorchestras, opera companies,chamber ensembles, andsoloists. For furtherinformation see his website at lowellliebermann.com.

Piano Trio to circulate for more than 35 years before he decided to correct what he regardedas its imperfections. In 1888 he had signed with a new publisher, Simrock Verlag in Berlin,who offered to issue new versions of Brahms’s previously released works, should he chooseto revise them.

Completing his revision of the work, Brahms sent it along to Simrock with this caveat,“With respect to the modernized Trio, I must categorically state that the old one is bad, but Ido not maintain that the new one is good….What about the old edition? There is no point indiscussing it, but all I would say is: if it is requested, send it, and if you find it necessary andadvisable to reprint it one day, then do so.”

Simrock did not find it necessary, and the 1889 score (published in 1891) became theauthoritative performing version of the Trio. The full extent of Brahms’s revisions andrewrites constitutes a clear look into a composer’s processes (the distinguished Britishmusic scholar Ivor Keys has published an excellent guide to the two versions of the Trio).Suffice to say, the early Trio in B major was the work of a 21-year-old; the revised Trio in Bmajor reflects the skills that came with that young composer’s maturity.

Johannes Brahms acquired an early love for literature, an interest that no doubt providedextra glue for the instant bond that he formed with the Schumanns—Robert and Clara—uponmeeting them in 1853. Brahms was especially attracted to the fanciful, and music-saturated,writings of E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822), in particular a principal character in Hoffmann’swritings. Johannes Kreisler, who served as Hoffmann’s fictional stand-in, was an opinionated,cranky composer and conductor whose passion and fire appealed to the young artists of hisgeneration. In 1838, Schumann had written a suite of piano pieces, “Kreisleriana.” Now, in the1850s, Brahms was working under the pseudonym “Joh. Kreisler, Jun.” It was in that frameof mind—of youthful, unrestrained passion—that Brahms composed the Piano Trio No. 1.

In 1889 the mature Brahms managed to keep that youthful vigor, while applying structuraldiscipline to the piece. The first movement, Allegro con brio, begins with the piano and cellolyrically introducing the main theme in the tonic key of B major. The lyricism soon gives wayto a passionate declamation by all three instruments, and to a second theme in g-sharp minor.

The Scherzo begins with the tonic key, as well, except that it is now B minor—a dancing figurereminiscent of a Mendelssohn scherzo. The dance gives way to lyric drama in the trio sectionand then returns for a vigorous ending—and a suddenly calm closing measure in B major.

That calm predicts the repose of the Adagio movement. Like the first movement, the Adagiomoves from an opening in B major to a second theme, for the cello, in g-sharp minor. Withinthe repose, the music of the Adagio speaks of restrained pain. The Allegro finale, shot

through with a persistent dotted rhythm and syncopations, begins in B minor, recalls the B major of the first movement, and then drives to a passionate ending in B minor.

Notes on the

programby

Sandra Hyslop

12 :: NOTES ON THE PROgRAM

These photos of JohannesBrahms, from 1862 and1886, reflect the years of his maturity, during whichhe began to contemplate revising his Piano Trio No. 1.It was first composed andpublished in 1854; in 1889he revised it significantly,and his publisher, SimrockVerlag, issued it in 1891.

In summer 1889 Johannes Brahmswrote to Clara Schumann, “…Withwhat childish amusement I while awaythe beautiful summer days you willnever guess. I have rewritten my B-major Trio [originally composed in1854] and can now call it Opus 108instead of Opus 8…It will not be sowild as it was before—but whether it will be better—?”

LECTURE–PERFORMANCE: THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2 PMElena Ruehr with the

Borromeo String Quartet & Donald Berman, pianoFree, no tickets required.

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