Program Notes

Bach Suite No.2 in D minor

The six suites for solo cello were composed by Bach between 1717 and 1723, when he was Kapellmeister at the court of the Prince of Anhalt Köthen. Each of the suites consists of six movements, making a total of thirty-six pieces. Is there any significance to this number? It could be his age, 36 in 1721. But this is just a conjecture. 

Bach's music is strongly influenced by his Christian faith. The Prelude to the Second Suite in D minor sounds like a prayer, expressing pain but also submission. Next comes an Allemande, a courtly dance of noble character, and a Courante in the Italian style, light and fast. The Sarabande, grave and solemn, precedes a couple of Minuets, one in minor mode and the other in major mode. The suite ends with a Gigue, a popular and well-paced dance

The original manuscript of the cello suites is unfortunately lost. The copies we have, one by Anna-Magdalena, the composer's second wife, and the other by his pupil Johann Peter Kellner, lack precision and sometimes differ quite markedly. But this gives the performers a freedom of choice which is a welcome consolation.

- Philippe Muller

Tonight’s two piano trios, Mozart’s K. 542 and Dvorak’s Op. 90 “Dumky”, were written at the height of each composer’s creative powers.  Both works are highly experimental in terms of harmony and form.  It is often said that Mozart’s K. 542 foreshadows Franz Schubert’s penchant for sudden harmonic changes, and Dvorak’s Dumky re-examines the traditional four-movement structure in this genre.

Mozart Piano Trio in E major, K. 542

Despite his financial difficulties, Mozart wrote some of his greatest music over the summer of 1788 including his last three symphonies. It was around the same time that he composed the E major piano trio. On June 17 he wrote to his fellow freemason friend Michael Puchberg, asking for a loan and adding as a P.S.: “When are we going to make a little Musique at your house again? I have just composed a new trio!” It was the Piano Trio in E major, K. 542, and was probably the same work he referred to in a letter to his sister Nannerl in August when he asked her to play some of his new pieces to Michael Haydn (brother of Joseph), adding that “he could not possibly dislike'' this trio.  

The key of E major is highly unusual for Mozart, for he only wrote two works in this key his lifetime, the other being the Adagio for Violin and Orchestra K. 261 (1776).

The first movement in particular is full of harmonic twists and surprises.  The opening theme seems uncertain whether it is joyful or melancholy, from a simple rising E major sonority in the first measure to a contrasting dwindling chromatics in the next measure. Rushing scales seem to tilt the balance away from melancholy as the strings join in, and the music proceeds amicably between the violin and piano, until one of piano’s rising scales unexpectedly hits a B-sharp, abruptly modulating to B major for the second theme.  As the theme is serenely stated twice from the violin and piano, the cello suddenly announces its presence in a remote G major and then G minor.  But Mozart equally swiftly recovers to end the first section in B major, rounding it off with an extended drooping chromatics heard in the second measure.  Characteristically, Mozart follows with a development based not on the most prominent material, but on the most insignificant falling interval from the first theme. The three instruments answer in a fugal style, imitating one another, continuing in a genial conversation until the piano suddenly bursts into a concerto style passage that carries out more harmonic changes. Equally abrupt, the music comes to a halt and brings the reprise of the opening theme. 

The second movement is a graceful Andante, with delicious dotted rhythms and offbeat phrasing suggesting an elegant yet highly stylized dance. The movement is written in a simple rondo form, but the music is full of details where Mozart never repeated the same markings for each of the refrains: changes in dynamics, harmony, articulation were all evidence of Mozart’s playful personality. 

Mozart had two attempts at composing the finale for this trio. He wrote more than sixty measures of a first version before abandoning it: just as he was embarking on a fugato passage he decided to start all over again. The new theme is, as Alfred Einstein commented, ‘almost childlike.’ The innocent quality is the result of the opening theme where the piano plays out a most unsophisticated tune with a simple accompaniment without one hint of the key-note E at the bass. The effect makes the theme seem to float in the air. The movement itself is full of musical drama, ranging from naivety to anguish and sorrow, and it showcases each of the instruments with dashing passages. But the simple main theme seems quite unaffected by all this. As the movement draws to a conclusion, Mozart presents us with not so much a climax, but rather a piacevole mood that is the essence of the whole piece.

Dvořák Piano Trio in E minor, Op. 90, “Dumky”

Dvořák composed the “Dumkas for piano trio” between November 1890 and 12 February 1891.  The subtitle “Dumky” is an Ukrainian word suggesting a pensive, melancholic mood.  There was little doubt in the composer’s mind that he was breaking new ground with this work.  In writing to his friend Alois Göbl in 1890 he mentioned that his new pieces for violin, cello and piano ‘would be both happy and sad’, a reference to the way in which each movement is built on an alternation of slow and fast sections.  In doing so he challenged the very essence of the large-scale, conventional trio sustained by sonata structures. The Trio was also different in tone; Dvořák seems to have been set upon creating a work with a popular accent and thus suitable for all kinds of audiences. His efforts paid off; since its first performance in Prague on 11 April 1891, with violinist Ferdinand Lachner, cellist Hanus Wihan, and Dvořák himself on the piano, the “Dumky” Trio has been among the most successful of his chamber works. The work was so well received that Dvořák performed it on his forty-concert farewell tour throughout Moravia and Bohemia, just before he left for the United States to head the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York City.

Despite the novelty of the overall conception, Dvořák still seems to have had at least a vague notion of a four-movement framework for his six dumkas since the first three run together with barely a break. The first dumka epitomizes the nature of a style in which passionate and meditative melody, often song-like in quality, alternate. While Dvořák is prepared to develop his themes in the faster sections, the melody of the slower portions is usually sustained by imaginative instrumentation and ear-catching ornamentation. In the first two dumkas, the fast passages are spirituous while the slow passages have a burning intensity. The third dumka is quite different, simultaneously the simplest and most original of the set. Radiant opening chords introduce a near-vocal main theme whose repetitions are enhanced by subtle transformations before giving way to a wistful central section in the manner of a polka. In the fourth dumka, a march is interspersed with a bright ‘Allegretto scherzando’ complemented by ornamentation from the first violin reminiscent of bird song. The penultimate movement is perhaps the most extrovert with a bracing main theme extended and enlivened by almost Beethovenian development. The final number challenges convention even further; the key is now C minor, a third lower than the E minor of the start of the Trio. The musical language in this remarkable concluding movement is full of suppressed tension. Although most of the material is derived from the opening bars, Dvořák sustains the impetus through a broad peroration, which is grand and tender, reflective and powerful.

- Credits to Robert Philip and Jan Smaczny of Hyperion Records