The New Zealand Chamber Soloists continue their commissioning project 7x7 with a new work from Gillian Whitehead, surrounding it with music by Haydn, Shostakovich and Robert Schumann.
New Zealand Chamber Soloists (l to r: Katherine Austin, James Tennant, Lara Hall) Photo: New Zealand Chamber Soloists
HAYDN: Piano Trio in E Hob XV:28
This is the penultimate of Haydn's 45 trios, published within a set of three in 1797. This last set of trios was dedicated to Therese Jansen Bartolozzi, an eminent pianist based in London at the time and a friend of Haydn during his visits there. He also dedicated three of his late piano sonatas to her and was a witness at her wedding.
The outer two movements of this E major trio are full of Haydn’s good humour but the second movement is a more sombre affair. It’s essentially a passacaglia – a creeping bass line is repeated throughout.
SHOSTAKOVICH: Piano Trio No 1 in C Minor Op 8
Shostakovich composed this trio at the age of 17 while he was a student at the Moscow Conservatory.
At the time, he was infatuated with a fellow student, Tatiana Glivenko and he dedicated the work to her. Some commentators are inclined to hear it as a love message.
Gillian WHITEHEAD: Mōtete
The title on first glance might imply ‘motet’, the form of vocal composition in use since medieval times. But as Whitehead explains in her programme note:
“Mōtete means, in te reo Māori, 'fragments', 'bits and pieces'. The piece is based on small ideas, akin to the Bagatelles of Beethoven or maybe the form of the Japanese haiku; small ideas are put together to make a series of four very short pieces [...]. The first takes as its starting point a call of the korimako or bellbird, the second for strings alone might suggest the western idea of motet, the third has more energy, and the fourth is recapitulatory” (by which she means that it replays some of the themes from the earlier pieces).
This is the fifth of the seven commissions from NZ women composers in the NZ Chamber Soloists' series 7x7, following works by Helen Bowater, Jenny McLeod, Janet Jennings and Eve de Castro-Robinson.
SCHUMANN: Piano Trio No 1 in D Minor Op 63
The Chamber Soloists’ own programme notes provide a perfect introduction to this work:
“Of [Schumann’s] three piano trios, all composed between 1847 and 1851, the first in D minor is the most well-known. As Schumann was the quintessential romantic composer, so this composition might well be regarded as one of the definitive romantic trios. The music language is brooding, idiosyncratic and frequently tangential in the manner of Schumann’s multi-character musical fairy tales. The piano writing definitely occupies a mid-18th century fantastical niche with the entire ensemble sometimes swelling into symphonic proportions. [...] It has been stated that Schumann was the first to inject the formally established piano trio with a strongly personal style.”
Recorded by RNZ Concert in Auckland Concert Chamber, 16 July 2023
Producer: Tim Dodd
Engineer: Adrian Hollay
