Prometheus Trio Horses Around

A piano trio constructed of unpublished fragments composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, pieces written by one of America’s most important contemporary composers, and a work inspired by a collection of Ukrainian folk songs. All are on the program to be performed February 7 and 8 by the Prometheus Trio: violinist Margot Schwartz, cellist Scott Tisdel, and pianist Stefanie Jacob.

After Mozart died in 1791 at the age of 35, his widow Constanze asked Abbé Maximilian Stadler to go through her husband’s unpublished manuscripts. Stadler found three fragments that, he judged, could form a piano trio. He proceeded to edit the fragments and published the Trio in D Minor, K. 442 under Mozart’s name. In 1968, musicologist Karl Maguerre re-edited the Mozart/Stadler version, hoping to improve what he pronounced as “naively un-Mozartian” passages. Prometheus Trio will perform the Maguerre edition.

Two short pieces, Big Sky and AND…THEY’RE OFF!, are by the American composer Joan Tower (born 1938). Prometheus pianist Jacob views Tower’s compositions as “work [that] should be played more often. It’s music that is both challenging (especially for the musicians) and convincing.”

Tower’s myriad commissions include one for the Milwaukee Ballet (Stepping Stones, 1993). A Nashville Symphony recording of her orchestral composition Made in America garnered three Emmys in 2008. A classically-trained pianist, Tower, in a 2021 radio interview, described her membership in the Da Capo Chamber Players as “the most important education” shaping her craft as a composer.

The pieces on next week’s programs were inspired by Tower’s love of the horses she rode while living in South America as an adolescent. Big Sky recalls the grandeur of the sky that Tower admired while riding in a Bolivian valley surrounded by the Andes mountains, while AND…THEY’RE OFF! suggests the thrill of a horse race.

Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904), one of the first Czech composers to gain international recognition, was particularly adept at incorporating folk music influences in his compositions. His Trio in E Minor, Op. 90 Dumky, illustrates his skill. The six movements include six dumka (the plural of dumky); these Ukrainian folk songs are described by Dvořák scholar Otakar Sourek as having “elegiac, retrospective character.” Musicologist Kai Christiansen notes that each dumka quoted in the piece exhibits “a dichotomy of low and fast, dour and bright, with masterful contrast of character, rhythm, tempo and color.” Collectively the movements express agitation, mischief, drama, lament, and exuberance.

The Prometheus Trio has scheduled two performances at the Helen Bader Concert Hall at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, 1584 N. Prospect Ave. An evening concert will be held at 7:30 p.m. Monday, February 7; the program will be repeated at 11 a.m. Tuesday, February 8. Tickets must be purchased in advance from the Conservatory by calling 414-276-5760 or online. Masks are required during the performance. For the Monday evening concert, free parking will be available one block north of the Conservatory at Milwaukee Eye Care, 1684 N. Prospect Ave.