A Trio of Trios Kicks Off Prometheus Trio Season
Group will perform Sept. 29.
A trio of trios kicks off the season for the Prometheus Trio on Monday evening, Sept. 29.
Guest violinist Yuka Kadota will join founders Stefanie Jacob (piano) and Scott Tisdel (cello) in performance at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, where the ensemble is in residence.
The Trio in B-flat Major (K. 502) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) opens the program. It’s one of five piano trios Mozart wrote between 1786 and 1788, facilitated by the fortunate confluence of composing talent (Mozart) and technological innovation (the invention and refinement of the fortepiano). Unlike its predecessor, the harpsichord, the fortepiano’s hammer mechanism allowed performers to produce contrasting loud and soft dynamics. As this new instrument became more widely available, demand grew for chamber music that included keyboard parts.
Mozart scholar Homer Ulrich writes that the three-movement B-flat trio “contains everything that Mozart had achieved up to this point: an air of gentle brooding, combined with moments of brilliant display; perfection of form with daring and unexpected turns of phrase; sublime melodies with roughly dramatic contrasts.”
In Mozart’s time, the fortepiano keyboard had a range of about five octaves. When Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) wrote his Trio No. 2 in E Minor in 1892, the modern piano had grown to seven octaves. A pianist and organist, and the first major French composer to write piano concertos, Saint-Saëns penned a keyboard part for his trio that uses nearly every note of the piano’s 88-key range.
The first of five movements opens with repeated piano chords that rise and fall in waves of sound, supporting a somber melody played by the violin and cello. Although the composer described the trio as “black notes and black in mood,” the emotional tenor of the entire piece is quite expansive. Two of the inner movements are waltzes, one using five beats to the measure rather than the conventional three. Reviewer Robert Philip describes the third Andante movement as “brief, simple and heartfelt.” The grand scale and darkness that began the piece return in the movement five Allegro.
The final trio comes from an unlikely source.
Alexander Borodin (1833-1887) had a successful career as a doctor and research chemist in his native Russia. He was a professor at the Medical-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg, and is credited with several significant discoveries in the field of organic chemistry. He founded a School of Medicine for Women.
Borodin was also a self-taught cellist, and began to compose music at age nine. The chemist/composer’s Trio in D Major, written about 1860 but unpublished until 1950, includes three movements. Music historians wonder if there is a lost fourth movement, because the closing minuet was an atypical ending for a trio written at the time. Cello melodies are featured throughout, and Borodin’s love of Mendelssohn seems to have inspired the work’s textures and harmonies.
The Prometheus Trios will perform at 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 29, at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, 1584 N. Prospect Ave. Advance tickets are available online.
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