Morgenstern Trio – March 3, 2022

Bridge: Piano Trio No. 1 in C Minor, H. 79, “Phantasie”

Beethoven: Piano Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 11, “Gassenhauer”

Beethoven: Ten Variations on “Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu,” Op. 121a

Schumann: Piano Trio No. 2 in F Major, Op. 80

PROGRAM NOTES

Frank Bridge: Phantasie in C Minor       

British composer Frank Bridge may be best known for his influence on the next generation of composers, as the teacher of the better-known Benjamin Britten. That said, Bridge was a fantastic composer in his own right, producing wonderful chamber music and exploring myriad compositional styles over the course of his lifetime. He was part of a generation of British composers including Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst, names we associate today with the development of a distinctly English sound in the early 20^th century.

Bridge’s Phantasie in C Minor, his first work for piano trio, was originally written as an entry in the Cobbett Competition, a competition designed to promote the composition of English chamber music. The Phantasie won the first prize in the 1907 competition.

While the Phantasie is performed as one single work, it is made up of several distinct sections that contain their own unique themes and exhibit different themes, moods, and tempos. One would expect these sections to be separated as movements in a traditional piano trio, but here they are performed attacca, back to back without separation, whisking the listener away on an exciting musical journey. The work begins with a dramatic declaration, and it takes many twists and turns before returning to the character of the opening statement at the very end.

Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Trio No. 4 in B-flat Major, Op. 11, “Gassenhauer”

The “Gassenhauer” Trio, one of Beethoven’s early chamber works, has a history of performance in both traditional piano trio instrumentation – piano, violin, cello – and the uncommon alternate of piano, clarinet, and bassoon. In fact, this particular trio was originally scored for clarinet, piano, and cello, likely due to the rising popularity of woodwind instruments at the time. The clarinet had only truly begun to come into its own in the works of Mozart, not long before Beethoven’s day. The key of B-flat Major would have been a comfortable key for the clarinet of Beethoven’s time (as well as today), providing an opportunity to showcase the virtuosic capacity of the increasingly popular instrument.

The third movement of this trio is a set of variations on the melody “Pria ch’io l’impegno” from Joseph Weigl’s 1797 opera L’amor marinaro ossia Il corsaro. This melody became such a popular earworm in its day that it was often heard hummed and whistled throughout the streets and alleyways, or “Gasse,” of Vienna. The resulting moniker of the trio, the uncommon term “Gassenhauer,” is today translated as a major success – a “hit.” The “Gassenhauer” trio, then, refers to Beethoven’s take on adapting a popular tune from his day. And he was not the only composer who was charmed by this melody: many others, including Niccolò Paganini, employed the same tune in their own works.

Ludwig van Beethoven: Ten Variations on “Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu,” Op. 121a

Beethoven’s set of “Kakadu” Variations was published in 1824, the last of his piano trios to be published – but not the last written. It is thought to have been composed 10-20 years previously and revised before publication, as it displays signatures of Beethoven’s earlier style. By the mid-1820s, Beethoven was experimenting with musical form and harmonic language, pushing the boundaries of his time, and these variations balance the complexity of his later works with the directness of his more youthful approach.

The “Kakadu” moniker refers to the tune “Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu,” which serves as the main theme of the work and is transformed through ten different variations that play with the character, the timing, and the voicing of the original melody. The popular tune was originally composed by Wenzel Müller, a contemporary of Beethoven and a popular and prolific composer in his own right. (Müller composed 166 operas, among many other works!)

Beethoven’s resulting work is best known for its unusual dimensions: while theme and variations was a popular compositional format of Beethoven’s time, allowing composers and performers to showcase their cleverness and creativity, this particular set begins with an unusually long introduction that takes up about a third of the piece’s total length. The serious introduction makes way for the lighthearted theme, which is treated to a set of delightful variations that alternate between showcasing the individual voices and celebrating the texture of the full trio.

Robert Schumann: Piano Trio No. 2 in F Major, Op. 80

Schumann completed his first two piano trios in the same productive year, 1847. Schumann’s compositions for this instrumentation were inspired by masterful trios by Beethoven, Schubert, and Mendelssohn written in the previous decades of the 19^th century. He even referred to Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio in D Minor as “the most masterly trio of the present era,” and thus reverently composed his first trio in the same key.

Although his first trio is more commonly performed, Schumann considered his second trio in F Major to be the friendlier and more immediately impactful of the two. The four movements of the trio shift between athleticism, tenderness, solemnity, and joy. Schumann mixes sweeping, song-inspired lyricism with detailed contrapuntal writing, creating a work that inspires and satisfies while also staying grounded. Indeed, song writing is never far from Schumann’s heart: in the middle of the first movement he quotes one of his own lieder, a song from his wonderful song cycle Liederkris composed a few years earlier.

This music is a beautiful example of the balance of characters we find in much of Schumann’s work, as he explored the facets of his own identity through his compositions. Schumann wrote of himself that he was ruled by two different, and sometimes competing, personas, whom he named Florestan and Eusebius. These imaginary characters, who first appeared in an 1831 essay written by Schumann, represented different elements of the composer’s identity. Florestan was the passionate, bold, and impetuous one, while Eusebius was dreamy and introspective. Schumann deployed these characters explicitly in some of his works, penning specific movements in the name of one or the other, and even titling two movements of his solo piano work Carnaval with the outright names of his alternative identities. Though Schumann does not name his doppelgängers directly in this particular trio, we hear the characters of Florestan and Eusebius waltzing through the music, each taking their distinct turn but ultimately creating a unified work that showcases the best of Schumann.

–Program notes by Emlyn Johnson