All About the Family for Prometheus Trio

L to R: Emmy Tisdel, Stefanie Jacob, Scott Tisdel with Meaghan Heinrich in the back. Photo courtesy of Stefanie Jacob.

The Prometheus Trio concert next Monday night at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music will be a family affair. Emmy Tisdel, daughter of pianist Stefanie Jacob and cellist Scott Tisdel will round out the trio for the evening, as they play works by Joseph Haydn and Paul Moravec. Violist Georgi Dimitrov will join them for a Johannes Brahms piano quartet.

Many of us have followed Emmy Tisdel as she moved on from concertmaster at Shorewood High School to violin performance studies at Oberlin, Rice, and McGill with occasional recitals back in Milwaukee. She now plays in the second violin section of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra and is completing a Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of Arizona. Along the way, she has actively contributed to the Ensemble Urbain in Montreal, the Tucson True Concord chorus and orchestra, the Austin Camerata, and others. Summers in Wisconsin, Emmy Tisdel serves as a violinist and violist for the Washington Island Chamber Music Festival.

Born in Bulgaria, Violist Georgi Dimitrov joined the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra in the spring of 2023 as Second Chair Violist. As a graduate student at the University of Southern California Georgi studied viola, conducting, and composition. He has taught violin classes with the Young Musicians Foundation of Los Angeles.

Working their way through the Haydn trios, the Prometheus Trio has selected an early work, Trio in G Major, Hob. XV: 5, but one late enough that the pianoforte was the keyboard Haydn had in mind. Opening with a lovely Adagio, the second movement features an exchange of themes between piano and violin, and the closing minuet begins formally enough, but introduces decorative filigree providing the energy for a satisfying conclusion.

Contemporary composer Moravec wrote Mood Swings (1999) ostensibly “to explore the comprehensive range of moods and psychological states of the central nervous system.” Biology aside, the composition is full of interest and energy. Dense segments give way to singing solo sections for cello and violin.

Critic Walter Simmons observes: “For me, the most salient qualities of Moravec’s music are a graceful fluidity of phraseology and a mercurial effervescence that at times achieves an almost ecstatic jubilation. He has a fondness for rapid staccato passages, often with repeated notes. Notable is a gift for freely flowing, chromatically roaming melodies—unpredictable yet right-sounding when heard, often accompanied by lucid, filigreed arpeggio textures.”

Jacob refers to Mood Swings as “an absolutely dazzling, incredibly difficult piece that has been a fascinating challenge for us each time we have played it.”

The concert closes with an obvious blockbuster, Brahm’s Piano Quartet in G Minor, Op. 25. Jacob acknowledges that this early work is less disciplined than expected of Brahms. Many themes and moods pervade the opening movements. The finale is a romp of a “Gypsy Style” Hungarian dance.

Jacob writes: “This movement has everything but the proverbial kitchen sink: bravura sixteenth note passagework for the piano, a mournful section where the cello and viola are in thirds–but the cello is the higher voice–TWO cimbalom-like piano cadenzas interspersed with two passages for strings alone, and a rousing, rip-roaring Molto Presto that drives this fantastic piece to a breathtaking finish.”

Guests and musical selections combine to make this a memorable concert.

The concert, Monday, February 5 at 7:00 p.m., will be heard in the acoustically ideal environment of the Helen Bader Recital Hall at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, 1584 N. Prospect Ave. Tickets may be purchased online or at the door. Complimentary parking is available at Milwaukee Eye Care, 1684 N. Prospect Ave., one block north of the Conservatory.

The Prometheus Trio will perform their final concert of the season on Monday, May 13 featuring a Mozart Divertimento for String Trio and a Felix Mendelssohn Piano Trio. Guest violinist Yuka Kadota and violist Robert Levine will join Jacob and Tisdel.

Those following Emmy Tisdel may be interested in some of the few videos online featuring her recent performances – an innovative concert by the Austin Camerata in a local museum, a string quartet performance at Washington Island, and a brief interview sponsored by the Tucson Symphony.