Czech Chamber Music Society • Guarneri Trio

In the music of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, from the beginning there is a combination of the heightened imagination typical of Romanticism with creative sensibilities in harmony with Mozartean clarity and economy. The son of a well-to-do townsfolk and the grandson of a great Jewish philosopher, he was a true prodigy like Mozart, and he benefited from not only his extraordinary talent, but also the support of his parents in the form of education and special advantages like the possibility of immediately getting to hear his own compositions played live. He took composition lessons from Carl Friedrich Zelter, a musician who was famous in Berlin at the time, and later he studied with the equally famous teacher Ignaz Moscheles. The instruction Mendelssohn received was artistically conservative, but he admired the late works of Ludwig van Beethoven. He also acquired historical knowledge, and he was the first composer to reflect that particular knowledge his in his music. The facts that his family had adopted the Christian faith and that he was himself a person of sincere Protestant convictions enabled him to take an intense interest in Bach’s music. And so it was that at the age of 20, with the Berlin performance of the St Matthew Passion he rediscovered Bach’s nearly forgotten compositional legacy for his contemporaries. At the same time, Johann Sebastian Bach strongly influenced him as a composer of music for the Protestant church. Ultimately, Bach’s influence is also present in the conceptions of the Biblical oratorios Elijah and St Paul. He quickly became a successful conductor. From 1835 until 1847 he held an important position with the Orchestra of the Leipzig Gewandhaus—he was the fifth chief conductor (Kapellmeister) in its history.

The list of works in the legacy of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy that have a permanent place in the worldwide repertoire begins with music he wrote in his childhood and youth. At age 16 he wrote his still popular Octet for strings, he composed the overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream when he was 17 years old, and he wrote 12 little symphonies for strings three years earlier than that. His Songs without Words are some of the best known works of the Romantic piano repertoire; he wrote concertos, the overture The Hebrides, and symphonies, the best known being the Scottish Symphony, Italian Symphony, and Reformation Symphony, in which he achieved a clear and perfect combination of classical form and Romantic emotion. His symphonic works are full of ideas, character, individuality, and mood. Many of Mendelssohn’s works exhibit exuberance in their first movements, in others movements one finds repose and emotional expression, and in the finales energy and liveliness interspersed with calmer episodes. These traits are joined by tenderness, ethereality, poetic inspiration, and lyrical majesty as well as the enchantment of the south of Europe, impressions from England and Scotland, and the spiritual depth of his Christian faith. The Violin Concerto in E minor, which was composed for the violinist Ferdinand David, concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, was written in close cooperation between the two musicians. The concerto is not only virtuosic and lyrical, but also highly innovative.

Mendelssohn composed three trios for piano, violin, and cello. The first came when he was just 12 years old, but only the two more mature works are numbered. The Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor was completed on the first day of autumn in 1839. Alongside the aforementioned Octet, it became Mendelssohn’s most popular chamber work thanks to its musical beauty. The first movement in classical sonata form with an exposition, development, and recapitulation starts right off without an introduction, and the lyrical main theme is given to the cello. Variations on this material lead to a second theme, also first played by the cello. The second movement is something like a song without words, with the theme in the piano part. The scherzo is short and light-footed, based on the rhythm of the work’s main theme. In the finale, technique is displayed above all by the piano. The movement and therefore the whole composition brightens not long before the end, when the key changes to D major. It is in the fourth movement that one finds the most noticeable changes proposed by the composer Ferdinand Hiller, whom Mendelssohn had asked for critical comments and suggested revisions. Although the changes heightened the music’s Romantic character, in a review of the piano trio Robert Schumann called his colleague Mendelssohn “the Mozart of the 19th century”.

The Guarneri Trio was founded in 1986 as a result of the long-standing collaboration between three distinguished soloists – the violinist Čeněk Pavlík, the cellist Marek Jerie and the pianist Ivan Klánský. Today, even after forty years of performing, this piano trio continues to perform actively in the same line-up at concerts and music festivals both at home and abroad. During its long-standing musical collaboration, the ensemble has attained exceptional artistic maturity, which, together with its technical virtuosity, excellent ensemble playing, sound quality and ease of expression, is often highlighted.

In the Czech Republic, the ensemble first came to prominence thanks to their performance at the Prague Spring festival in the early 1990s. The trio soon attracted the attention of the international press as well, thereby consolidating its position on the international music scene; the musicians have already undertaken extensive concert tours across Europe, Canada, Australia, North and South America, and Japan. The Guarneri Trio also regularly teaches at masterclasses.

Over the years, the ensemble has built up an extensive repertoire encompassing works from various stylistic periods; pianist Ivan Klánský commented on this in one of his interviews as follows: “The repertoire for our line-up is actually one of the most beautiful in chamber music, and the best-known works of international stature are primarily from the Classical and Romantic periods, so that forms the core of our repertoire. Occasionally we also play 20th-century music – we mainly choose composers whom we know personally and with whom we have, or have had, a good relationship, such as Luboš Fišer, for example.” At the same time, the musicians always strive to stay as true as possible to the composer’s original intention in their interpretation: “We have a theory that every piece has its own ideal interpretation, and we believe it should be the aspiration of every soloist or ensemble to come as close as possible to this ideal.”

For the Czech label Supraphon and the French label Praga Digitals, the Guarneri Trio has recorded, amongst other works, all the piano trios by Ludwig van Beethoven, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Franz Schubert, Antonín Dvořák, Dmitrij Shostakovich, Johannes Brahms, Josef Suk, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Bedřich Smetana. Their recordings have received numerous international awards (Diapason d’Or, Le Monde de la Musique and others). The ensemble has also made several recordings and live concert recordings for numerous radio stations, including the BBC, Radio France, ORF and Czech Radio.

The name ‘Guarneri’ in the trio’s title refers to the famous Italian family of violin makers, from whose workshop both string instruments in the ensemble originate – Čeněk Pavlík plays a Zimbalist violin by Guarneri del Gesù from the violin collection of Luigi Tarisio, whilst Marek Jerie plays a cello made by Andrea Guarneri in 1684.