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Phillip T Young Recital Hall
August 11, 2016
Has there ever been a more tragic musical premiere than that of Beethoven's "Archduke" Trio? The composer Louis Spohr was a witness:
"It was not a good performance. In the first place the piano was badly out of tune, which was of little concern to Beethoven because he could not hear it. Secondly, on account of his deafness, there was scarcely anything left of the virtuosity of the artist which had formerly been so greatly admired. In forte passages the poor deaf man pounded on the keys till the strings jangled, and in piano he played so softly that whole groups of notes were omitted, so that the music was unintelligible. I was deeply saddened at so harsh a fate. It is a great misfortune for anyone to be deaf, but how can a musician endure it without giving way to despair? From now on Beethoven's continual melancholy was no longer a riddle to me."
To contemplate one of the greatest composers of all time — and the finest pianist of his generation — being humiliated in this way is enough to make a grown man weep. And, indeed, aside from one brief performance a few weeks later, Beethoven never played the piano in public again. Compositionally, though, as we are aware, he went from strength to strength — when he could find the time and wasn't fretting over his ne'er-do-well nephew — and it is one measure of his greatness as a human being, never mind musician, that even after this dreadful experience he was still able to produce the late sonatas, the Missa Solemnis, the ninth symphony and the late quartets.
The "Archduke" of course survived its rocky start in life and became Beethoven's most popular piano trio and one of his most popular chamber works, as was only right and proper.
On Thursday evening, the Duke Trio brought their recital — and this year's Victoria Summer Music Festival — to a resplendent close with the "Archduke".
This was a suitably aristocratic performance — Archduke Rudolf was not only Beethoven's patron, he was his pupil and a very competent composer in his own right — and from the nobility of the opening pages to the final dazzling coda the trio put nary a foot wrong.
I was especially taken with the quite lovely recapitulation of the first movement, the playful and lilting scherzo with its mysterious trio, the lyrical slow movement conveyed with considerable tonal beauty from all three players and the jaunty finale in which the trio's meticulous ensemble and unanimity of tone, which were in evidence throughout the evening, shone through.
In 1792 George Thomson wrote to the poet Robert Burns: "For some years past, I have, with a friend or two. employed many leisure hours in collating and collecting the most favourite of our national melodies, for publication....we are desirous to have the poetry improved wherever it seems unworthy of the music".
Thus began a process of gentrification of Scottish folk music, a process which continued largely unabated until the mid twentieth century. For the verses which Burns, and others, provided for Thomson — who persuaded "proper" composers such as Haydn, Beethoven, Pleyel and Hummel to compose arrangements of the collected melodies — were far more polite than the originals. As even a cursory examination of genuine folk songs such as those collected by Lucy Broadwood or anthologised by Francis Child will reveal, the primary focus of the overwhelming majority of most folk songs, certainly in great Britain, was twofold: sex and death. (One could also relate this evisceration of the indigenous culture to the a-historical romanticisation of the Scottish Highlands, for which Sir Walter Scott must shoulder much of the blame. But that is another story, for another time.)
One cannot, of course, blame the composers for Thomson's desire to bowdlerise and, as the group of five of his Schottische Lieder amply demonstrated, Beethoven provided inventive and at times fascinating accompaniments for piano trio, hardly the obvious choice.
Anita Krause had to walk a fine line with these songs, which fall somewhere between being genuinely "of the people" and being art songs. This line she trod exceptionally well, making the most of the music while never once sounding condescending. She even (almost) persuaded me that "joy" is a suitable rhyme for "far awa'".
The songs were, presumably, chosen for their variety of moods: "The lovely lass of Inverness", for example, was downright sombre, while "Dermot and Shelah" was jaunty with a delicious pizzicato accompaniment.
A rare and genuine treat.
"It seems evident that he has made common cause with the advocates of modernity and put technical interest before aesthetic pleasure...My impression is that he is bartering a noble birthright for less than a mess of pottage."
Frank Bridge's Piano Trio No.2, whose second performance in April 1930 provoked the above comment in the Musical Times, did not receive an easy ride. Bridge was, as his pupil Benjamin Britten recalled, distressed by that comment, as he had been by the distinctly unfavourable review of the premiere the previous November, written by Herbert Hughes in the Daily Telegraph, which included the somewhat fatuous observation that Bridge "like so many others...can no longer be regarded as a 'young British composer'". Which given that Bridge turned fifty in 1929, is hardly particularly perceptive.
The Duke Trio opened Thursday's concert with an outstanding performance of the trio, one of Bridge's finest works, yet also the epitome of his post-War, more acerbic idiom — this is a far cry from his lush arrangements of melodies such as "Cherry Ripe".
The music itself is somewhat gnomic and the thematic material seems largely derived from a four-note cell that keeps reappearing through the work. The first movement opens with almost eerie violin and cello lines over a highly arpeggiated piano accompaniment (limpidly played by Peter Longworth) and its enigmatic nature put me somewhat in mind of Debussy's late sonatas, composed a decade or so previously. The movement built to a powerful climax, with weighty string tone, before subsiding into a misterioso ending.
The bouncy and angular scherzo fizzed along, while the succeeding andante was deeply lyrical but also profoundly uneasy.
The finale was fiery and passionate and highly rhythmic, building to a grand version of the work's opening before dying away and leaving us with high, keening strings and more arpeggios.
All in all, this was an exceptional evening's music making and a worthy end to this year's Victoria Summer Music Festival.
Here's to next year.
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