I asked my friend Kurt Loft, who spent much of his career covering the classical music world for newspapers and magazines, to take a look at our March 1 Palladium Chamber Players concert and write something if he was so moved.
He was so moved he even reached out to our Artistic Director Jeffrey Multer for a quote. Here are Kurt’s musings on what looks like another amazing concert:
By Kurt Loft
The three composers on the upcoming Palladium Chamber Players program (Wednesday, March 1, 7:30 p.m.) contributed no less than a combined 125 symphonies to the repertoire, spanning from tasteful classical structures to impassioned romantic ventures to shattering reflections on world war. Although the reputations of Haydn, Mendelssohn and Shostakovich as symphonists often overshadow their efforts in the realm of chamber music, much of the latter actually is symphonic in concept. In fact, using little more than violin, cello, and piano, these men created what might be viewed as exquisitely crafted miniature orchestras.
This is the beauty of the trio form. So much can be expressed here, with a piano spanning seven octaves, the violin’s melodic soprano voice, and the earthy richness of the cello. Haydn may have been the father of the string quartet, with Mendelssohn and Shostakovich adding gloriously to its literature, but they also had much to say as masters of the trio.
Tonight’s program gives listeners a taste of three distinct eras and styles – classical, romantic, 20th century – each diverse but complementary as a whole, says Jeffrey Multer, violinist with the Palladium Chamber Players and concertmaster with The Florida Orchestra.
“This is an amazing program,’’ he says. “We decided on these to show the great contrast within the piano trio repertoire. The quirky humor and gallant style of the Haydn contrasting the desperation and horror of the Shostakovich makes a great first half. The fire and spiritual grandeur of the Mendelssohn is the perfect antidote for the hopelessness of the Shostakovich. Each piece is a masterwork with great contrast contained within its individual movements as well. Quite the emotional kaleidoscope.’’
Haydn’s Trio No. 43 in C Major may have been published 220 years ago, but it carries no dust from age. Haydn had plenty of experience writing trios by 1797 and he features the piano prominently – the keyboard used to take backseat to the violin – set in the Italian three-movement style of fast, slow, fast tempos. This is music full of Baroque-like texture, soaring lyricism, and modulating harmonies crafted with what Haydn described as “care and diligence.’’
He was, after all, a supreme craftsman whose painstaking approach to composing belies the effortless feel of his late trios, notes Charles Rosen in his book “The Classical Style.’’ He calls this music, along with the Mozart concertos, “the most brilliant piano works before Beethoven.’’
Moving from light to darkness, the program continues with Shostakovich’s Trio No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 67, a challenging, melancholy work written shortly after his war-time Eighth Symphony. Shostakovich completed the Trio in 1944 and dedicated it to a close musician friend who had recently died of a heart attack. The opening movement makes use of Slavic folk songs that fuse into a powerful climax and quiet ending. The second section, less than 3 minutes in length, serves as a foil for the work’s centerpiece – a deeply moving threnody in memory of Shostakovich’s departed friend. “Five times the piano repeats the series of chords while the strings sing the somber lament, now bleak and desolate, now anguished and impassioned,’’ notes Melvin Berger in his “Guide to Chamber Music.’’
The finale is a macabre dance of death that develops furiously, a surreal mix of Yiddish dance tunes that is less about hope and promise than it is about resignation.
Mendelssohn completed his two lone trios in 1839, nearly a half century after Haydn had mastered the form, and fully aware of two other definitive works by Beethoven, the “Ghost’’ and “Archduke’’ trios. A precocious and gifted composer – he wrote the masterly Octet for Strings at age 16 and the overture to “Midsummer Night’s Dream’’ a year later – Mendelssohn imbued his Trio in C Minor, Op. 66 with a wealth of compact yet complex ideas.
It opens with a restless, agitated theme transformed among the three instruments. An expressive “Song Without Words’’ second movement follows, then an elfin-like scherzo. The finale, marked appassionato, pushes piano, violin and cello to their sonorous limits.
For tickets and more information on the concert, please call the box office at 727-822-3590 or follow this link for on-line ticket purchases.
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