Czech Chamber Music Society • Janáček Trio

Of more than 90 chamber instrumental compositions by Bohuslav Martinů, there is a significant number of trios – 15 in total. However, he composed only four pieces scored for piano trio. Bergerettes for violin, cello and piano, H 275, were written at the end of winter in early 1939, in the turbulent period shortly before German troops invaded the territory of Czechoslovakia. At that time, Martinů had already been living in Paris for a number of years (since 1923). He was exposed to diverse influences there, including the music by Stravinsky, Bartók, Hindemith, Les Six and jazz. Martinů used to spend the summers in his homeland, and this was no different in 1938. He did not know then that it would be the last time he would visit Czechoslovakia. He responded to the tension that was pervasive in Europe with his Double Concerto for two string orchestras, piano and timpani, H 271. The Bergerettes, which Martinů completed in February 1939, have a very different character. This is suggested by the title of the work, which refers to French songs with pastoral or amorous themes that were popular in the 18th century (le berger – shepherd).

It is are a cycle of five miniatures each in three sections with a contrasting section in the middle. Except for the fourth movement, they have the form of da capo with a trio. Despite the circumstances of its composition, Martinů managed to imbue these miniature movements with an atmosphere of joy and optimism. He was helped by memories of his native land, but also by the use of some characteristic elements inspired by Czech and Moravian folklore. The fast tempi of the outer movements and the use of ostinato create the impression of a pulsating energy that makes the music rush forward in an unstoppable current. Among the lively, rhythmically expressive movements, the central Andantino stands out. It is characterized by a certain melancholy and considerable tonal variability. It also differs from the other movements by its reversed three-part form, where the outer sections are slower and the central one is lively. Martinů has never heard the Bergerettes in a public concert. Its premiere took place many years later, in 1963, when it was performed by the Foerster Trio. This graceful composition is charmingly playful. At the concert today it will be accompanied by the selected correspondence between Martinů and Vítězslava Kaprálová, who studied with the composer in Paris.

Already as a child, Johannes Brahms (1833‒1897) had begun helping to supplement the family budget by playing the piano with his father in Hamburg’s pubs and dance halls. At the same time, he began to exhibit his extraordinary talent as a pianist, and from 1849 his talent at composing as well. For the young Brahms, 1853 was a year of key importance. That was when he met the violinist Eduard Reményi and went on his first concert tour with him, during which in Hannover, Reményi introduced Brahms to the violinist Joseph Joachim, who was two years his elder. A lifelong friendship developed between Brahms and Joachim. On 30 September 1853 Brahms and Joachim made their first visit to the married couple Robert and Clara Schumann in Düsseldorf. After Brahms showed them his first compositions, Robert Schumann wrote an article in his periodical Neue Zeitschrift für Musik titled Neue Bahnen (New Paths), in which he foretold a great future for Brahms. He also recommended the young composer to the publisher Breitkopf und Härtel.

Brahms’s most important composition representing this happy period of his search for and discovery of promising prospects is the Piano Trio in B major, Op. 8. Today, it is Brahms’s earliest preserved chamber work. The composer himself destroyed all of his earlier chamber music besides the scherzo from the FAE Sonata (a collective work with individual movements composed by Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, and Albert Dietrich). Only the Trio in B Major remains as an authentic example of Brahms’s early chamber music. The work was premiered on 13 October 1855 in Danzig (Gdansk). The four-movement trio is full of beautiful melodic ideas. Years later, the composer’s lifelong friend Clara Schumann had difficulty accepting the fact that in 1889 Brahms subjected the composition to a thorough revision, so that the result was a very different composition. He wrote to her: “The first movement has been cut down to about half of its original length, and the second and third movements by one-third. In the first and final movements, I have replaced the second themes with entirely new ones, I have removed the long fugue from the first movement, in the Adagio I have deleted the central Allegro section, and I have omitted all quotes of songs by Beethoven and Schubert from the Finale.” The Trio in B major is Brahms’s only work published in two different authorised versions, and today nearly everyone plays the revised second version, which is characterised by its greater wealth of thematic and motivic elaboration (something typical of the mature, not the young Brahms). It is also one of the few multi-movement works to begin in a major key and end in the parallel minor (another example is the Italian Symphony by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy).

As Arnold Schoenberg wrote, the opening theme of Brahms’s Piano Trio No. 1 is “the initial thought of the piece, which in turn, acts as the generator for all subsequent musical events.” The Scherzo has a lively, rhythmic main theme, while the contrasting Trio section offers a moment of relief and uses folk inspiration. The Adagio third movement leaves a lasting impression thanks to the soulful cello melody in the middle section. The concluding Allegro is exciting and dramatic. The major-key second theme brightens the atmosphere somewhat, but the composition still drives ahead to its triumphant (minor-key) ending.