SMETANA: Piano Trio in G Minor, Op. 15; MARTINŮ: Piano Trio No. 1: Cinq pièces brèves; PETR EBEN: Piano Trio – The Florestan Trio – Hyperion CDA67730, 57:14 **** [Distrib. by Harmonia mundi]:
Here is the successful realization of a great programming idea: piano trios from three ages of Czech music. First there is the superb Smetana Trio in G Minor, a breakthrough work for the composer, written following the death of his much-loved daughter Kateřina in 1855. It’s a dark haunted work with a driving intensity that’s relieved by moments of tender melodiousness. While the piece has a somewhat rambling quality in spots, this is because it seems to follow Liszt’s principal of thematic metamorphosis. For instance, the central scherzo-cum-slow-interlude repeats motifs of the first movement’s principal theme, while the wildly paced finale is often interrupted by a sweet, elegiac melody spun off the principal theme. By the time this elegy returns, speeded up, vying with the principal theme for dominance toward the end of the movement, it’s clear that the composer’s hard-won peace is a troubled one. This is a composition to set beside the very finest in Smetana’s catalogue, including that other autobiographical chamber work, the String Quartet No. 1, “From My Life.”
On the other hand, Martinů’s Trio No. 1 of 1930 seems to validate the criticism that the composer wrote too much music. To me, it lacks inspiration, but at least Martinů can’t be accused of untruth in advertising: the trio’s subtitle Cinq pièces brèves says it all. Rather than a unified work with an overarching plan, it’s a group of short pieces stitched together. Individually these pieces, written in Martinů’s newly adapted neoclassical style, are interesting enough though the fast bits have a certain sameness, at least to my ears. The high point of the work is the Adagio second movement, whose pained expressiveness is genuinely involving.
On to Petr Eben’s Piano Trio of 1986. Eben is best known for his keyboard works, especially for organ, and for choral music, but this trio strikes me as a modern masterpiece. Eben starts from an interesting premise, that the piano trio is not a highly congruous grouping of instruments, so instead he wrote what amounts to a “cycle for string duo and piano.” This reminds me of P.D.Q. Bach’s infamous Concerto for Two Pianos vs. Orchestra, and the results are pretty much the same (though not, of course, consciously inept as the concerto is!). In the first and third movements especially, the performers are played off against one another, the strings quietly legato while the piano is thundering away at big chords, and vice versa.
As Robert Philip points out in his notes, the Lento third movement—where the piano plays a labored funeral march as the strings reel off a waltz like some fin-de-siècle salon ensemble—recalls the dizzy multilayered music of Charles Ives. Think The Unanswered Question. The Andante con espressione second movement, on the other hand, finds the players more or less on the same page musically, and the result is an oddly disquieting sort of night music a là Bartók, with weird little snippets from Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 thrown in for I-know-not-what-reason! Strange, elusive, memorable music is this.
The Florestan Trio has made a series of highly regarded recordings for Hyperion, including a definitive one of the Schumann trios, and the present disc is an equally distinguished effort. The Smetana is a richly textured piece of high drama in their hands, while the Eben is just as abstract and astringent as can be, as if another ensemble entirely were playing it.
Unfortunately, Hyperion’s recording isn’t what I expect from this label. Susan Tomes’ piano seems to be recorded in a different acoustic from that of the strings, lending a brittle one-dimensionality to her sound. This is the only sticking point, though it does detract from overall enjoyment. Given such intelligent programming and first-rate performances, it’s a pity.
– Lee Passarella
