Last year about this time, I wrote a column that was entitled, “Piano Profusion Ahead—Jeannie Yu Returns.” I could easily use the same title and write a very similar column for this week’s program. Last year we were performing Franz Schubert’s Piano Trio in E-Flat, D. 929, as a part of our celebration of his 225th birth year. This season, we are performing that work’s sister composition, the Piano Trio in B-Flat, D. 898, which was written just before the E-Flat Trio. Both were completed in Schubert’s final year of life. Both are large scale works and show the mark of the true genius he was. And both are quintessential contributions to the chamber music repertoire and helped establish the piano trio genre as an important ingredient in that repertoire.
Between Beethoven’s death in March of 1827 and Schubert’s in November of the following year lay what Benjamin Britten held were, “the richest and most productive eighteen months in our music history. I mean the period in which Franz Schubert wrote Winterreise, the C Major Symphony, his last three piano sonatas, the C Major String Quintet, as well as a dozen other glorious pieces.” Included in these are the two Piano Trios.
Besides just the greatness of their music and the joy in hearing it, I am intrigued by what makes composers unique. What sets them apart? Why is it that Schubert sounds different from Beethoven or Brahms? Perhaps the most important difference goes back to Bach. As you probably know, Bach was not well known, highly regarded, or often much performed until Mendelssohn unearthed and re-introduced a number of his important works, most notably, the St. Mathew Passion, and this was about 80 years after Bach’s death. He was virtually unknown or disregarded outside of his own hometown of Leipzig where some memory of him remained. That is, until Mendelssohn accepted an appointment in Leipzig and began to delve into his works. Regardless, in some fortuitous way, many composers who shouldn’t have known about him found out about him before Mendelssohn made his big finds and championed him. Mozart learned about him mid-career and eagerly studied his contrapuntal style. It made a huge impact on his style going forward. Something similar happened with Haydn, but in both cases it was pure happenstance, and very fortuitous at that. In Beethoven’s case, he had the great good fortune to have a teacher come into his hometown from Leipzig who was steeped in the Bach tradition. It is safe to say Beethoven would not have been Beethoven without this strong connection to Bach. He may have been great, but he would have been completely different. The same is true of Schumann and Brahms. Both made it a point to study Bach intensely. It had a decided impact.
That brings us to Schubert. Here is a different animal. While I am sure that Schubert was aware of Bach, he doesn’t seem to have been nearly as significant in Schubert’s development. Consequently, Schubert’s music has a different quality to it. From a very basic, and somewhat simplistic, point of view, Schubert was primarily interested in melody and harmony, not so much in counterpoint and the complex intertwining of motifs that certainly occupied Beethoven and Brahms. In that sense, Schubert was a true Romantic in that he focused on sound for its own sake rather than the architecture and intricate interrelationships of musical material. Perhaps that is why Schubert is known first and foremost as a composer of German Lieder (songs). He helped create that repertoire and then flooded it with 600 supreme examples. But the focus of those songs is how to best reflect or intensify the text using melody and harmony (and rhythm) first and foremost.
This quality spills over into his instrumental works. They can sound intense, profound, or highly charged, but they never sound thick or muddy or overcomposed, as can be the case at times with Brahms and Beethoven. Melody abounds supported by infectious harmony and rhythm. If architecture is the preeminent aspect of classical music, sound and its effects is the new world of the Romantic period, and here, Schubert sets the tone leading to Wagner, Bruckner, and Mahler.
His Piano Trio in B-flat featured on Midsummer’s Schubert Trio program is the perfect example. It is an extraordinary example of how just three instruments can transfix the listener over a significant period of time while painting sumptuous tone pictures, one after another. And, despite the fact that Schubert was not known as a brilliant performer, there is plenty of virtuosic writing that will be superbly dispatched by David Perry, violin, Mara McClain, cello, and Jeannie Yu at the piano. If you loved Jeannie Yu in the Emperor Concerto (who didn’t?) and David Perry in the Mendelssohn Quintet, you will thrill at hearing them in this work.
The program opens with another trio by Ukrainian composer Dmytro Klebanov. Long denied performance opportunities by the Russian authorities, including Stalin, because he was both Ukrainian and Jewish, his music is full of both melancholy and resigned spirit expressed through some of his native folk music and elements of period popular music. It is a compelling and touching mix worth getting acquainted with and is a worthy prelude to the Schubert.
We hope you will get acquainted with both works at one of four upcoming performances:
Thursday, July 27, 7:00 pm, Kress Pavilion, Egg Harbor
Friday, July 28, 7:00 pm, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 7:00 pm., Ephraim
Saturday, July 29, 7:00 pm, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Sister Bay
Sunday, July. 30, 5:00 pm, Hope United Church of Christ, Sturgeon Bay
These will be our last performances until we return later in August, leading up to Labor Day. Please take advantage of these concerts by calling 920.854.7088 or visit www.midsummersmusic.com for tickets or more information. And while you’re at it, reserve your tickets for our Labor Day Gala at Björklunden, Monday afternoon, September 4 at 3:00 pm. It is always a great way to celebrate the season with great music, inviting food, and high spirits. It will probably sell out so don’t wait to get your tickets.
Jim Berkenstock,
Artistic Director