Unlike much of the earlier history of the piano trio, where the piano predominates the texture, where the violin is often limited to echoing the piano’s theme, and where the cello hardly has any independent melodic line but is subordinated to a role rather like that of the baroque trio sonata’s basso continuo, the string trio has, by its nature, to give fully individual parts to all three instruments, violin, viola and ‘cello, to enable the sonic texture to be adequately filled in.
Boccherini (born in our nearest city, Lucca, in 1743) is as significant as Haydn in contributing to the development of chamber music and particularly the string quartet. He wrote around a hundred string quartets and an even greater number of quintets. He also wrote a number of string trios. Being a supreme cellist (his statue in front of Lucca’s Boccherini conservatoire shows him playing one) the composer included more independent lines for the cello than any of his contemporaries.
The young but masterly ‘Ludwig’ string trio, made up of Enrico Bernini, Tommaso Valenti and Francesca Gaddi have been playing together for some years and their absolute communion of souls and brilliant expressive technique showed throughout the concert I’d publicised in my previous post and which took place at Borgo a Mozzano on the 23rd June.
There was one difference: the location was moved from the town hall’s delightful garden to the main entrance hall, not because of the weather (it’s been very sunshiny with the occasional monsoon-like afternoon shower) but because the acoustics are obviously so much better suited for chamber music which, as its name implies, should be played in an interior space.
This was the programme:
Boccherini’s trio op 14 no. 4 is in three movements, the second of which is marked ‘andantino’. The weird thing about this tempo indication is that some musical dictionaries say it’s faster than ‘andante’ while others say it’s slower. On the Euterpe recording the movement is played more slowly with pizzicato stretches in the viola and cello parts. However, the Ludwigs played it equally effectively in the faster interpretation of ‘andantino’ but with no pizzicati. I enjoyed this interpretation as it effectively turned the first movement, ‘Allegro Giusto’ (a beautifully constructed piece in rondo form) into a sort of slow introduction to a faster second movement.
Anyway, judge for yourself in this recording I made of the complete work that evening and also hear how together the ensemble is.
Schubert’s lovely trio D471 suffer from one defect. The composer completed only the first movement. Anyway, he did at least make a start on the second movement but only a few bars survive. The reason why Schubert left so many works uncompleted (most famously his symphony no 8) is still a mystery to me. At least he did complete the third of his three string trios!
Beethoven’s Trio Op 9 no. 3, in four movements, is a comparatively early work (written in the last year of the 18th century) but has already the fire and unconventionality of his mature works. Here is the scherzo from the work with its surprising syncopations.
I loved the Kodaly, so relaxing after the strife of the Beethoven.
The audience would not let the Ludwigs depart without two encores. The first was a brilliant arrangement of Piazzolla’s ‘Tango Libre’
The second was, most fittingly, the first movement of a serenade: Mozart’s ‘little night music’.
I should add that this concert forms part of the 16th international academy of music which is centred in the old capuchin monastery of Castelnuovo di Garfagnana further up the Serchio valley.
The festival, which is brim-full of international artistes, finishes on the 8th of July, and the full programme can be found at:
http://www.internationalacademyofmusic.com/italy-main.html