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contrast
Beethoven’s piano trio in c minor is without question one of the most famous works for its genre. Beethoven himself labeled three of his early piano trios as his opus 1 despite having composed several works before – a clear sign of him holding these works in high regard. In 4 movements the work gives a perfect example of Beethoven’s oeuvre: a very serious first movement, the Adagio consisting of very contrasting and expressive variations, the Menuet evolving into an almost romantic Scherzo and the Finale with boundless energy and drive.
In his work PULSAR, New York resident and Swiss composer Daniel Schnyder uses the piano trio at first appearance almost as a jazz combo. The ‘symphony for piano trio’ catches the listener’s attention with groovy rhythms, a wide harmonic range and sentimental passages. That allows every instrument to show its characteristics but also be found in an unusual roles.
The Davidoff Trio invites the audience to face two very contrasting piece as a perfect example of Diversity in Unity: obviously there is no direct link between Schnyder and Beethoven, yet they used the exact same setup to express their musical ideas. And while Beethoven was the first to use the symphonic form of four movements for a piano trio, Schnyder even named his composition symphony – maybe there are more connections within this musical cosmos? A question we want everyone to answer on his or her own.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Piano Trio Op. 1 Nr. 3
C minor
Daniel Schnyder (*1961)
PULSAR
"Symphony for piano trio"
In his work PULSAR, New York resident and Swiss composer Daniel Schnyder uses the piano trio at first appearance almost as a jazz combo. The ‘symphony for piano trio’ catches the listener’s attention with groovy rhythms, a wide harmonic range and sentimental passages. That allows every instrument to show its characteristics but also be found in an unusual roles.
The Davidoff Trio invites the audience to face two very contrasting piece as a perfect example of Diversity in Unity: obviously there is no direct link between Schnyder and Beethoven, yet they used the exact same setup to express their musical ideas. And while Beethoven was the first to use the symphonic form of four movements for a piano trio, Schnyder even named his composition symphony – maybe there are more connections within this musical cosmos? A question we want everyone to answer on his or her own.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Piano Trio Op. 1 Nr. 3
C minor
Daniel Schnyder (*1961)
PULSAR
"Symphony for piano trio"
youth
Davidoff Trio‘s youth program contains four works, written when the composers were only around the age of 18. Combining these very different pieces in one program promises a concert experience of great intensity and represents a tribute to youth, to which the young Davidoff Trio cordially invites you.
Fifteen years lie between Schubert‘s first composition for piano trio ‚Sonatensatz‘ and his two big later written piano trios. And though on first sight it seems like only little of the late Schubert can be found in his early composition, one can already see Schubert‘s potential in some of the details: the overall conception of the movement and a self-contained tonal language.
When the young composition student Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his first piano trio in 1923, at the age of just 17, when he was at the very beginning of his artistic development - yet the one-movement work already contains hints of the signature that would make Shostakovich one of the greatest composers of the 20th century: the use of a plaintive "leitmotif," an almost machine-like 1st theme, and an exceedingly elegiac 2nd theme.
Debussy's Piano Trio in G major, written by the then piano and composition student at the age of 18, is characterized by a completely different tonal language, but also by youthful exuberance. This trio, too, is already distinguished by a high level of compositional skill, but only rarely allows Debussy's later developing impressionist personal style to flash beneath the romantic sound picture.
In contrast, the Piano Trio op. 8 in B major by Johannes Brahms is considered his first and at the same time last piano trio. The version written in 1854 by the 20-year-old composer is available to us today in a version revised in 1889 by the composer himself, which in some places directs the youthful élan and expansive form of the composition into more sedate channels. The opening theme alone is certainly one of the most beautiful melodic ideas Brahms produced in his lifetime.
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Sonatensatz, B-flat major
D. 28
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Piano Trio in G major
L. 5
Dmitri Schostakowitsch (1906-1975)
Piano Trio Nr. 1, C minor
Op. 8
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Piano Trio Nr. 1, B major
Op. 8
Fifteen years lie between Schubert‘s first composition for piano trio ‚Sonatensatz‘ and his two big later written piano trios. And though on first sight it seems like only little of the late Schubert can be found in his early composition, one can already see Schubert‘s potential in some of the details: the overall conception of the movement and a self-contained tonal language.
When the young composition student Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his first piano trio in 1923, at the age of just 17, when he was at the very beginning of his artistic development - yet the one-movement work already contains hints of the signature that would make Shostakovich one of the greatest composers of the 20th century: the use of a plaintive "leitmotif," an almost machine-like 1st theme, and an exceedingly elegiac 2nd theme.
Debussy's Piano Trio in G major, written by the then piano and composition student at the age of 18, is characterized by a completely different tonal language, but also by youthful exuberance. This trio, too, is already distinguished by a high level of compositional skill, but only rarely allows Debussy's later developing impressionist personal style to flash beneath the romantic sound picture.
In contrast, the Piano Trio op. 8 in B major by Johannes Brahms is considered his first and at the same time last piano trio. The version written in 1854 by the 20-year-old composer is available to us today in a version revised in 1889 by the composer himself, which in some places directs the youthful élan and expansive form of the composition into more sedate channels. The opening theme alone is certainly one of the most beautiful melodic ideas Brahms produced in his lifetime.
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Sonatensatz, B-flat major
D. 28
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Piano Trio in G major
L. 5
Dmitri Schostakowitsch (1906-1975)
Piano Trio Nr. 1, C minor
Op. 8
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Piano Trio Nr. 1, B major
Op. 8
departure
The poet, musician and journalist Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart characterized the key of B-flat major in his "Aesthetics of Tonal Art" as follows: "cheerful love, good conscience, hope, longing for a better world." A few decades later, his fellow composer Franz Schubert, phonetically related to him by surname, wrote his Piano Trio in B flat major. We do not know for sure whether Schubart's writings were familiar to him - but it cannot be excluded. The great trio in B-flat major was composed a year before Schubert died, a time already strongly marked by the composer's illness and possible premonition of death. If one understands the work as a kind of swan song, it conveys one thing above all in its drama and emotionality, which flash up again and again: the hope of finding peace through the departure into another, better world.
For very personal reasons, we as an ensemble programmatically link Schubert's trio with a work that is contradictory at first glance: Claude Debussy wrote his only composition for this instrumentation in 1880 at the age of 18. The reason for working on a piano trio was his patroness at the time, Mrs. Nadezhda von Meck: she was already protégéing Tchaikovsky. Under the impression of his beginning studies in the metropolis of Paris on the one hand, and his suddenly sophisticated lifestyle on the journeys throughout Europe on the other, Debussy created an early work full of energy, optimism and joyful expectation in Italy - similar to Schubert's, only with a clearly life-affirming expression. To work on this piece during a study stay in Italy, which was made possible for us also by a generous patron, was a great source of inspiration for us. Not least in times of a pandemic that has lasted for years, both works call us to never close our own horizons to what lies ahead.
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Piano Trio Nr. 1, B-flat major
D. 898
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Piano Trio in G Major
L. 5
For very personal reasons, we as an ensemble programmatically link Schubert's trio with a work that is contradictory at first glance: Claude Debussy wrote his only composition for this instrumentation in 1880 at the age of 18. The reason for working on a piano trio was his patroness at the time, Mrs. Nadezhda von Meck: she was already protégéing Tchaikovsky. Under the impression of his beginning studies in the metropolis of Paris on the one hand, and his suddenly sophisticated lifestyle on the journeys throughout Europe on the other, Debussy created an early work full of energy, optimism and joyful expectation in Italy - similar to Schubert's, only with a clearly life-affirming expression. To work on this piece during a study stay in Italy, which was made possible for us also by a generous patron, was a great source of inspiration for us. Not least in times of a pandemic that has lasted for years, both works call us to never close our own horizons to what lies ahead.
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Piano Trio Nr. 1, B-flat major
D. 898
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Piano Trio in G Major
L. 5
the davidoff timelapse
What does it sound like when 3 Russian composers compose a work for piano trio exactly 50 years apart? The davidoff timelapse invites the audience on a special musical journey through time.
The starting point is Russia in 1894: Anton Arensky writes his 1st Piano Trio in memory of the cellist Karl Davidoff - a work that probably contains some of the most elegiac melodies of the Russian late Romantic period, but in its dramatic generosity also paints a fitting picture of its creator and his time. Thus Arensky died at a young age to the consequences caused by his dissolute lifestyle, marked by alcohol and gambling addiction, in the cultural stronghold of St. Petersburg at the time.
Change of scenery, 50 years later: St. Petersburg is now Leningrad and the center of Shostakovich's life. In 1944, under the impression of the horrors of World War II, he composed a piano trio in memory of a deceased friend - a composition that not only allows conclusions to be drawn about the painful loss of his friend, but is also clearly an expression of the mood with which the composer perceived his present, suffering massively under the repressive measures of the Stalinist regime.
Another 50 years after: Born in Russia in 1973, the composer Lera Auerbach, a child of the globalized age, never returned to her homeland after a concert tour in the USA. Discovered early on as a child prodigy, she further developed her tonal language at the Juillard School of Music in New York. In 1994, she composed her first piano trio, in which, among many other influences, harmonic structures that refer to Shostakovich repeatedly flash up.
Anton Arensky (1861-1906)
Piano Trio Nr. 1, D minor
Op. 32
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Piano Trio Nr. 2, E minor
Op. 67
Lera Auerbach (*1973)
Piano Trio Nr. 1
Op. 28
The starting point is Russia in 1894: Anton Arensky writes his 1st Piano Trio in memory of the cellist Karl Davidoff - a work that probably contains some of the most elegiac melodies of the Russian late Romantic period, but in its dramatic generosity also paints a fitting picture of its creator and his time. Thus Arensky died at a young age to the consequences caused by his dissolute lifestyle, marked by alcohol and gambling addiction, in the cultural stronghold of St. Petersburg at the time.
Change of scenery, 50 years later: St. Petersburg is now Leningrad and the center of Shostakovich's life. In 1944, under the impression of the horrors of World War II, he composed a piano trio in memory of a deceased friend - a composition that not only allows conclusions to be drawn about the painful loss of his friend, but is also clearly an expression of the mood with which the composer perceived his present, suffering massively under the repressive measures of the Stalinist regime.
Another 50 years after: Born in Russia in 1973, the composer Lera Auerbach, a child of the globalized age, never returned to her homeland after a concert tour in the USA. Discovered early on as a child prodigy, she further developed her tonal language at the Juillard School of Music in New York. In 1994, she composed her first piano trio, in which, among many other influences, harmonic structures that refer to Shostakovich repeatedly flash up.
Anton Arensky (1861-1906)
Piano Trio Nr. 1, D minor
Op. 32
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Piano Trio Nr. 2, E minor
Op. 67
Lera Auerbach (*1973)
Piano Trio Nr. 1
Op. 28