SCHUBERT: Piano Trio No 1 in Bb D898
Allegro moderato
Andante - un poco mosso
Scherzo: Allegro
Rondo: Allegro Vivace
Franz Schubert Photo: Wilhelm August Rieder Public Domain
No manuscript of the Trio in B flat survives, but evidence suggests it was composed in September to October 1827. Given Schubert’s ill health and career struggles, we might expect dark, brooding music in this Trio, similar to Winterreise, the great song cycle he was working on that same year. But the Trio in B flat is mostly a joyful, exuberant work, full of life and energy. As Robert Schumann wrote at the Trio’s posthumous publication in 1836, ‘a glance at Schubert’s trio, and all miserable human commotion vanishes, and the world shines in new splendour.’
- The sweeping opening theme of the B Flat Trio paraphrases Schubert’s song Des Sängers Habe of February 1825. ‘Shatter all my happiness in pieces, take from me all my worldly wealth, yet leave me only my zither and I shall still be happy and rich!’.
- The slow movement has a bittersweet radiance that Schubert seldom equalled.
- The third movement is a Scherzo-Allegro that borrows from the Ländler, a folk-dance in triple metre that features hopping, stamping, and, occasionally, yodelling. The trio section of the Scherzo is delicate and sparse.
- The Finale is a rondo with propulsive dotted rhythms, sharp dynamic contrasts, and ethereal fluttering effects.
Recorded in St Andrew's on The Terrace, Wellington by RNZ Concert in July 2016
Producer: David McCaw
Engineer: Graham Kennedy
About the artists:
The Calvino Trio was founded in 2013. The three young musicians, Finnish violinist Sini Simonen, Canadian cellist Alexandre Foster and New Zealand/Japanese pianist Jun Bouterey-Ishido, first met at the IMS Prussia Cove master classes in Cornwall.
New Zealand musician, Jun Bouterey-Ishido will be familiar to audiences from the concert stage and his competition successes, including 1st Prize at the 2008 Kerikeri International Piano Competition. Since then his studies have taken him to the Liszt Academy, Budapest and to Stuttgart, where he graduated with Distinction from the Konzertexamen (Concert Artist) programme, receiving mentoring from Péter Nagy and Kirill Gerstein.
Finnish violinist, Sini Simonen studied at the Sibelius Academy and Musikhochschule Hannover. She has been a prize winner in several major international violin competitions including the Lipizer, Flesch, Cremona and Sibelius violin competition. Sini was a member of the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra and has played as a soloist with, among others, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Göttingen Symphony Orchestra, the Gyor Philharmonic Orchestra and the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra.
Alexandre Foster, born in Canada, studied cello with Thomas Demenga in Basel. A devoted chamber musician, Alexandre Foster was a member of the Iris Quartet (Freiburg) with which he played concerts in Europe and America and is now a member of the Baroque Ensemble Le-Je-Ne-Scay-Quoi. Alongside his performing commitments, since 2013 Alexandre has held a teaching post at the Hochschule für Musik Stuttgart and is the assistant of Conradin Brotbek at the Hochschule der Künste Bern.
Calvino Trio Photo: Calvino Trio
