CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Trio Chausson

Weill Recital Hall
Friday, November 30th, 2007 at 7:30 PM

Trio Chausson
·· Philippe Talec, Violin
·· Antoine Landowski, Cello
·· Boris de Larochelambert, Piano

HAYDN Piano Trio in C Major, Hob. XV:27
BRAHMS Piano Trio No. 2 in C Major, Op. 87
Y. BOWEN Piano Trio in E Minor, Op. 118
CHAUSSON Piano Trio in G Minor, Op. 3

Rising Stars is a project of the European Concert Hall Organization (ECHO), supported by the European Commission. For this series, the directors of Europe’s most important concert halls and Carnegie Hall—the only non-European member of ECHO—nominate young soloists or ensembles from their own countries to appear in other ECHO halls. Rising Stars nominees appear at Carnegie Hall in the Distinctive Debuts series in Weill Recital Hall.

The Trio Chausson was nominated by Cité de la Musique (Paris).

The Distinctive Debuts series is made possible, in part, by an endowment fund for the presentation of young artists generously provided by The Lizabeth and Frank Newman Charitable Foundation.

Additional endowment support for international outreach has been provided by the Stavros S. Niarchos Foundation.

Program Notes:

By Susan Halpern

JOSEPH HAYDN Piano Trio in C Major, Hob. XV: 27
Born March 31, 1732, in Rohrau; died May 31, 1809, in Vienna.

Composed between 1794 and 1795 in London, Haydn’s Piano Trio in C Major received its Carnegie Hall premiere in Carnegie Recital Hall (now Weill Recital Hall) on March 3, 1975, with the Stuttgart Piano Trio: Rainer Kussmaul, violin; Peter Hahn, cello; and Monika Leonhard, piano.

In the 1790s, Haydn wrote 19 piano trios, 12 of which were published in sets of three, each set dedicated to a woman whose talents are reflected in the piano parts. The important defining characteristic of this music derived from a functional, perhaps social, but non-musical aspect: almost all chamber music was composed for private performance and for the performers’ own pleasure. Therefore, Haydn tailored this private music to the tastes and skills of specific players, and the elaborate dedications that often accompanied them did not constitute empty gestures.

London, then home to many French, Germans, and Italians displaced by the French Revolution, was quite a melting pot. Haydn’s first visit there gave him great pleasure. It was well known that he had an unhappy marriage, and that London’s women powerfully attracted him. During his second stay in the city in 1794–95, he composed keyboard trios for some of these women. (In total, he composed 45 piano trios.) These late trios contain some of his most difficult, daring, and original music for the piano, and the proficient and largely female performers for whom he composed the works had a significant influence on the compositions.

Haydn tellingly named the first edition of the trios Sonatas for the Pianoforte, with an Accompaniment for the Violin and Violincello; although the string parts have some freedom and individual identity in the music, these are really piano pieces. Some commentators still think of Haydn’s late keyboard trios as keyboard sonatas with violin and cello accompaniment, because so much of the material resides in the keyboard part, and the most involved string passages are usually doubled by the keyboard.

Haydn composed a series of three piano sonatas for Theresa Jansen, an excellent pianist who had studied with Clementi. (Clementi also dedicated his ambitious Piano Sonatas, published in 1794, to her.) Haydn knew Jansen, both a performer and a piano teacher, well enough to stand as witness at her marriage to the accomplished artist/engraver Gaetano Bartolozzi in 1795. Another lady who figured in Haydn’s life and work at this time was his piano student Rebecca Schroeter. During his second visit to London, he lived with Schroeter. She wrote him numerous love letters, yet around that same time, Haydn formed a close relationship with the wife of a surgeon, setting several of her love poems to music. Supposedly, one day her husband’s early return home interrupted some intimacy, and the gentleman suggested cutting off Haydn’s nose as payment for the music lessons his wife had received. Haydn tells of the incident in his notebook, “I shouted, screamed, pounded, and kicked until I was able to free myself and hurried out of the house.” Some critics contend Haydn composed this work for the surgeon’s wife; others attest he wrote it for Schroeter, although most agree it was intended for Jansen-Bartolozzi. Regardless, the music, although melodic, is of a conservative nature and was intended particularly for home entertainment.

This charming trio has three movements following a fast-slow-fast pattern. The violin part is generally ornamental, and the cello part, an outgrowth of the baroque continuo, doubles the piano’s bass part. The first movement, Allegro, reflects C. P. E. Bach’s influence in the brilliant and difficult piano part’s improvisatory quality and the downplaying of the string parts. H. C. Landon wrote, “It is almost as if Haydn wished to show the world what possibilities in tonal relationships, harmonic subtleties, instrumental combinations, and sheer brilliance of form the genre of the trio could display.” Composed in sonata form, it contains many motifs as well as much rhythmic contrast. In both the first two movements, Haydn displays the pianist’s skills with rapid octaves and thirds for the right hand. The second, quite lyrical, movement, Andante, contains a short cadenza for the piano, while the final movement, Presto, a rondo, displays cheerfulness and wit and has been praised as one of Haydn’s most humorous pieces. Haydn requires hand-crossing and rapid passagework, and in the development section finally allows the strings to dialogue freely with the piano, sharing motifs among them.


JOHANNES BRAHMS Piano Trio No. 2 in C Major, Op. 87Born May 7, 1833, in Hamburg; died April 3, 1897, in Vienna.

Composed in 1882, Brahms’s Piano Trio No. 2 in C Major was first performed on December 29, 1882, in Frankfurt, with the composer playing the piano part. It received its Carnegie Hall premiere on November 28, 1928, with the Compinsky Trio: Sara Compinsky, piano: Manuel Compinsky, violin; and Alexander Compinsky, cello.
In 1882, Brahms spent his second summer season at the spa of Bad Ischl, which Emperor Franz Joseph and his court had made fashionable. The composer’s friends wondered why he bothered leaving the capital when half of Vienna was at Ischl, but Brahms replied that he did not mind, as long as the population at Ischl did not include half of Berlin or Leipzig. Other musicians were at the spa too, among them Johann Strauss, whose special gifts Brahms greatly admired.

Brahms had published another trio 28 years earlier but had quickly regretted it, and in 1889, he rewrote it completely. He possibly wrote other trios and discarded them as he did many other compositions that did not meet his ever-rising standards. He sketched the first movement of this trio in 1880 and then put it aside for two years. When it was complete, Clara Schumann immediately marveled at its fluency and called it “a real musical tonic” for her. A “try-out” performance in August went well, and although Brahms habitually belittled his new works, he boasted about this one to his publisher.

The opening Allegro provides the model for the entire work. This piece is not relaxed and concise; it is terse but pithy, and Brahms makes his points directly and economically. A noteworthy feature of the first movement is the frequent distinct separation of the strings from the piano and a characteristic formal touch in the use of a lovely, sadly lyrical melody as the second theme. The second movement, a set of five variations on a simple melody, resembles a Hungarian folk song with strings and piano featured in alternation. Then follows a hushed, dark-toned scherzo with a contrasting central trio section. The good-humored finale, Allegro giocoso, is a compact, energetic movement brought to an end by a huge coda.

YORK BOWEN Piano Trio in E Minor, Op. 118
Born February 22, 1884, in London; died there November 23, 1961.

Tonight’s performance marks the Carnegie Hall premiere of Bowen’s Piano Trio in E Minor, Op. 118, completed on October 16, 1945.

Completed on October 16, 1945, the Piano Trio Op. 118 is dedicated it to the pianist of the Isaacs Trio, Harry Isaacs, with whom Bowen performed in a two-piano ensemble. The piece was premiered in Wigmore Hall in London on April 4, 1946.

Bowen, the son of a whisky distiller, began studying piano and harmony with his mother. His parents sent him to the North Metropolitan College of Music and then the Blackheath Conservatory, and at age 14, he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied piano and composition. He became an accomplished organist, horn, and viola player. At 23, Bowen was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music, and at 25, became a professor there.

Bowen, who Saint-Saëns described as “the most remarkable of the young British composers,” favored a romantic style very much out of fashion. Refusing to modify his writing to be more contemporary in spirit, his work fell into decline, but not before he composed many works for well known musicians of the day.

Bowen’s music is now hardly ever performed, although recently there has been renewed interest in his work. He is often referred to as the English Rachmaninoff, but although his work is distinctive, within it many Romantic influences abound: from Brahms to Chopin, Dvoøák, Grieg, and Tchaikovsky. His work includes many duos, chamber music, piano music, four piano concertos, a viola concerto, and four symphonies.

Boris de Larochelambert, the pianist of the Trio Chausson, kindly supplied the bulk of the following reflections on this work, which is still in manuscript. The first highly dramatic movement is characterized by a very spirited first theme. The lyrical second theme, introduced by the cello, is very subtle and harmonically refined. This well-balanced movement displays many textures and culminates in a brilliant climax, both fast and chromatic. The second movement begins with a dark piano introduction that has elements of jazz as well as Rachmaninoff. The violin introduces the main theme, which then passes to the cello. This theme expresses an alternation between the “dreamy/ecstatic and painful.” The middle section is “brighter, gently rocking at the beginning, then leading to a series of progressions with great expression and harmonic skill.” The final movement, in the style of a tarantella, begins with bi-tonal pizzicato in the strings and is very energetic. Its central section has more charm and grace with jazzy harmonies, and the movement concludes with a lyrical climax leading to faster, agitated, rich harmonic writing, both exultant and brilliant.

ERNEST CHAUSSON Piano Trio in G Minor, Op. 3
Born January 21, 1855, in Paris; died June 10, 1899, in Limay.

Composed in 1881, Chausson’s Piano Trio, Op. 3, was first performed was on April 8, 1882, in Paris, at a concert of the Société Nationale de Musique. Tonight’s performance marks the Carnegie Hall premiere of this work.

Chausson was the son of a wealthy Parisian family that required him to study law, but at the age of 25, he enrolled at the Paris Conserva‧tory as a pupil of Massenet. After he failed to win a Prix de Rome because his musical ideas were too radical, he left the Conservatory to study with César Franck, who exerted a strong influence on his work. Chausson also went to Germany to hear Wagner’s operas, and he returned to Paris with what his professors called the “dangerous” score of Parsifal. Wagner’s music unquestionably influenced Chausson’s work.

Chausson did not compose many works, but the strong sensual appeal of his compositions has kept them alive. Much of Chausson’s music was not widely recognized until after his death, which came at any early age, after a bicycle accident on a hill on his country estate in 1899. The Piano Trio, Op. 3, his first chamber work, remained unpublished for 20 years after his death. An early work, it functioned as a kind of musical declaration of inde‧pendence. It is written in the musical language of Massenet and includes formal ideas much like those of Franck, but with the overtones of Wagner. It is not, however, a derivative work, and contains Chausson’s very personal lyricism and nobility. Although rarely, performed, it is a significant work of the French fin de siécle, by a young man of great talent and high aspirations. It is pervaded with an aristocratic melancholy and subtle skepticism.

The first movement is apparently designed as a general introduction. In this movement in free sonata form, chromatic lines are offset by unusual rhythms. It has rich thick textures and dark harmonic progressions. All of the themes Chausson introduces in this movement return in the final movement in altered form. The second movement is quick and has an exciting rhythmic fluidity. It is a genuine French dance set, whose elegance is based partially on the subtle metric changes, using groups of three and groups of four in cycles. The third movement, with elements of elegiac melody, reintroduces some material from the first movement. The animated finale, initially with a cheerful dance-like form, recalls the second movement. Generally, here the rhythmic verve has more regularity than in preceding movements, although there are some contrasts as Chausson alternately introduces some darker themes and even a march theme in this movement.


Copyright © 2007 by The Carnegie Hall Corporation

Susan Halpern contributes program notes to numerous musical organizations.

Trio Chausson
·· Philippe Talec, Violin
·· Antoine Landowski, Cello
·· Boris de Larochelambert, Piano
The music of Ernest Chausson, who lived in the second half of the 19th century, is full of the passion, torment, and energy characteristic of that significant period in French art history. Inspired by his work, Philippe Talec, Antoine Landowski, and Boris de Larochelambert formed the Trio Chausson, performing their first concert together at the Clairac Festival in 2001.

Each of the trio’s members completed instrumental studies at the Paris Conservatory, where, under the guidance of Pierre-Laurent Aimard, the Trio was awarded first prize in chamber music. The members of the Trio then continued their studies in the Conservatory’s post-graduate chamber music program in 2004, with Claire Désert, Ami Flammer, and Alain Meunier.

First-prize winners at the Joseph Joachim International Chamber Music competition in Weimar in November 2005, they have also been honored at numerous other international competitions: the Joseph Haydn Chamber Music Competition in Vienna in 2004, Illzach in 2005 (where they won the SPEDIDAM prize for the best interpretation of a French work), FNAPEC Competition in Paris in 2004 (Pro Musica Prize), and Château Beychevelle, also in 2004.

Invited on a permanent basis to participate in the European Chamber Music Academy since 2004, the group has been coached by eminent chamber musicians throughout Europe, including Hatto Beyerle (Berg Quartet), Anner Bylsma, Gérard Wyss, Eckart Heiligers (Jean-Paul Trio), Shmuel Ashkenazy (Vermeer Quartet), Rainer Kussmaul (concertmaster of the Berliner Philharmoniker and member of the Stuttgart Trio), Johannes Meissl (Artis Quartet), and many others.

In 2005, the French Association for Artistic Action (AFAA) chose the Trio to participate in its “Déclic” program, which includes a live recording at Radio France and international concert tours. The Trio also received grants from the Société Générale Bank and the ADAMI.

The Trio Chausson has performed throughout Europe, the United States, and Brazil. The group was selected to perform in the 2007–08 Rising Star series. They will play in the biggest concert halls in Europe and at Carnegie Hall in New York.

ECHO

The European Concert Hall Organization (ECHO) gathers the directors of some of the most important concert halls around the world to nurture cultural exchange and encourage the circulation of work. ECHO promotes projects in two main areas: launching the international careers of young artists through its Rising Stars series, and commissioning new musical works by composers collaborating with artists from other disciplines. For Rising Stars, ECHO members nominate young soloists or ensembles from their own countries to appear in other ECHO halls. The nominees appear at Carnegie Hall––the only non-European member of ECHO––in the Distinctive Debuts series. The participating organizations are the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), the Megaron (Athens), the Festspielhaus (Baden-Baden), Cité de la Musique (Paris), the Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels), Symphony Hall (Birmingham), the Philharmonie (Cologne), the Barbican Centre and Royal Festival Hall (London), the Philharmonie (Luxembourg), Carnegie Hall (New York), the Konzerthaus and Musikverein (Vienna), and the Konserthuset (Stockholm). The European Commission has supported ECHO’s programs since 2000.

The Trio Chausson was nominated by Cité de la Musique (Paris).