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Emily Bruskin, violin
Julia Bruskin, cello
Donna Kwong, piano
Twin sisters Emily Bruskin (violin) and Julia Bruskin (cello) formed the
Claremont Trio with Donna Kwong (piano) in 1999 at The Juilliard School.
The Claremonts are based in New York City near their namesake, Claremont
Avenue. First winners of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson International
Trio Award, the Claremonts are the only piano trio ever to win the Young
Concert Artists International Auditions. Believing that education on
all levels is essential to the future of classical music, the Claremont Trio
is extensively involved in teaching the next generation of musicians and
music lovers. Sought after for their effectiveness in the classroom as
well as on the concert stage, the Trio will conduct educational outreach
activities and master classes in more than ten states this season, including
a mini-residency at the Peabody Conservatory's Preparatory Division and
master classes at the University of Washington. In recent years, the
Claremonts have led master classes at the Eastman School of Music, Boston
Conservatory, Purchase College at SUNY, Middlebury College, University of
Wisconsin at Oshkosh, Longy School of Music, and Gettysburg College's
Sunderman Conservatory. The Claremont Trio’s debut CD of Mendelssohn
trios was released on the Arabesque label in 2004. The group’s second
disc of Shostakovich and Arensky trios was released on Tria Records in 2006
in honor of the 100th anniversary of Shostakovich’s birth. The
Claremonts launch the 2008-2009 season with the release of two CDs, spanning
music from Beethoven to Mason Bates. American Trios on Tria
Records will be the first disc to present both of Leon Kirchner’s piano
trios and will honor his 90th birthday in January 2009. The disc also
features Paul Schoenfield’s Café Music, Ellen Zwilich’s Trio,
and Mason Bates’ String Band (written for the Claremont Trio in
2002). The group's second 2008 CD, to be released by Ongaku Records, is a
collaborative project with clarinetist Jonathan Cohler including works by
Beethoven, Brahms, and Dohnanyi. In 2006, the trio added a new feature
to its Web site – a blog describing their adventures on the road.
Through this online tour diary the members of the trio reach out to friends
and music lovers of all ages around the world, offering a window into their
lives as traveling musicians. For more information about the Claremont
Trio and to read their blog, please visit
www.claremonttrio.com.
Arabesque Records
Exclusive Management: Arts Management Group, Inc., 37 West 26th Street, New
York, New York 10010
Master classes by the Claremont Trio are sponsored by JonesDay.
Joseph Haydn (born Rohrau, Austria, March 31, 1732; died Vienna, May 31, 1809)
Trio in G major, H. XV:25 (composed 1795)
Andante
Poco adagio: Cantabile
Rondo all’Ongarese: Presto
Alliteration aside, the words “Haydn” and “hit” are not usually thought
of together. We tend to think of the conspicuous musical success as a
product of our century of mass consumption. But like composers before
and since, Haydn found that audiences would latch on to a certain movement,
demand its repetition at concerts, and clamor for piano arrangements they
could play at home. During most of his career, these were often the
slow movements from symphonies, especially those popular enough to have
nicknames: No. 53 (L'Impériale), No. 63 (La Roxolane),
No. 94 (Surprise), and No. 100 (Military).
During his second London visit in 1795, Haydn wrote the Piano Trio in G
major and found that its finale, nicknamed the Gypsy Rondo,
became one of his greatest hits both in England and throughout Europe.
Soon it appeared in transcriptions for string quartet, violin duet, and
piano solo; in our own century, Fritz Kreisler arranged it for violin and
piano.
Popularity aside, this trio was also unusual in having two slow movements
and not a single one in true sonata form. Haydn dedicated it and two
others published by Longman & Broderip as his Opus 73, to Rebecca Schröter.
She was the widow of the pianist and composer Johann Samuel Schröter
(1750-1788) and lived not far from Haydn during his London sojourns.
Haydn later acknowledged their discreet flirtation, confessing in a letter
that, “I would very readily have married if I had been free then.”
The slow opening movement is a set of alternating major and minor variations
on the same theme. The second of the minor variations features a
tempestuous violin solo. Even slower is the Poco adagio,
which slows still further in its Cantabile midsection. There,
a heartrending violin theme soars above triplets in the piano's right hand
and the calm octaves in the left.
With expectations raised by the preceding slow movements, the Presto
finale erupts with some of Haydn's most effective uses of folk material.
The Hungarian recruiting dance, the “verbunko,” is the source of the rondo's
main theme. Austrian officials would hire Gypsy bands playing this
sort of riotous dance to entice peasants to sign up for the imperial army, a
classic bait-and-switch scheme. In the Minore section, Haydn
uses another Hungarian melody, a version of which would, some ten years
later, appear in an anthology of Hungarian national dances set for piano.
Paul Schoenfield (born Detroit, January 24, 1947)
Café Music (composed 1986)
Allegro con fuoco
Andante moderato
Presto
A native of Detroit, Paul Schoenfield began playing piano at the age of six and composed his first work soon thereafter. Eventually, he would study piano with Rudolf Serkin and composition with Robert Muczynski, earning his D.M.A. from the University of Arizona. Although earlier in his career, Schoenfield toured extensively as a pianist both alone and in such ensembles as Music From Marlboro, he now rarely performs publically. While his wife was doing her medical residency in Cleveland between 1988 and 1993, Schoenfield was teaching piano at the University of Akron and grew increasingly involved in the local music scene. In 1994, Schoenfield was awarded the Cleveland Arts Prize in music.
Schoenfield has written the following about Café Music:
"The idea to compose Café Music first came to me in 1985 after sitting in one night for the pianist at Murray's Restaurant in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Murray's employs a house trio which plays entertaining dinner music in a wide variety of styles. My intention was to write a kind of high-class dinner music -- music which could be played at a restaurant, but might also (just barely) find its way into a concert hall. The work draws on many of the types of music played by the trio at Murray's. For example, early 20th century American, Viennese, light classical, gypsy, and Broadway styles are all represented. A paraphrase of a beautiful Chassidic melody is incorporated in the second movement. Café Music was commissioned by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (SPCO) and received its premiere during a SPCO chamber concert in January 1987."
The opening movement, Allegro con fuoco, is fast-paced and jazzy. The middle movement, marked Andante moderato, boasts a gentle 12/8 time signature and pays tribute to the Jewish musical heritage that Schoenfield shares with George Gershwin, who also skillfully melded the classical and the popular idioms. The Presto finale often sounds improvised but is fully notated in its rush through exotic rhythms and keys.
Antonín Dvořák (born Nelahozeves, Bohemia, September 8, 1841; died Prague, May 1, 1904)
Trio no. 3 in F minor, op. 65 (B. 130) (composed 1883)
Allegro ma non troppo
Allegretto grazioso – meno mosso
Poco adagio
Finale: Allegro con brio
At the time Antonín Dvořák was working on his Trio no. 3 in F minor,
op. 65, he was still distraught over the death of his mother on
December 15, 1882. The first draft, sketched out during February and
March of 1883, was no doubt haunted by her passing. But in April and
May, the composer reworked virtually every measure, revising
instrumentation, cutting and rewriting passages, adding expression marks,
and switching the order of the two central movements. When Dvořák sat
at the piano for the trio's premiere performance on October 27, 1883, it was
a different work that likely reflected not only the agony over his mother's
death but something else as well.
Dvořák envisioned himself as the voice of Czech nationalism and believed he
could best express this in his Czech-language operas. So when admirers
offered him a commission for an opera to a German libretto, he debated long
and hard with himself over his course of action. Such a work would be
assured performances in venues where a Czech opera would be scorned, places
such as Dresden and Vienna. Dvořák’s fame and stature would rise as a
result, but at the price of his identification with the Czech cause.
As it happened, he rejected this particular commission in 1883; but the next
year he would make his first trip to England and find his fame and influence
growing in spite of himself. Not quite a decade later, of course, he
would journey to the United States to influence and be influenced.
Ironically, the Czech operas he DID write have rarely found an audience
outside his homeland.
Many, including Dvořák biographer John Clapham, consider the Trio, op. 65 to
be his greatest chamber work. The Brahmsian influence is unmistakable,
but even more clear is the stamp of the maturing Dvořák. The trio
shares the epic proportions of the Symphony no. 7, op. 70, composed
two years later. That is evident from the two-part opening theme of
the Allegro ma non troppo. Gentle unison strings dominate the
first part, with contrasting intensity in the second part. The violin
sounds a brief subordinate theme over accompanying syncopations. Then
the main theme's second part spawns a more quiet second theme proper, in the
cello. The development is abbreviated and the recap runs off into
ominous realms.
Staccato strings under a piano theme that sounds related to those of the
first movement mark the outer portions of the Allegretto grazioso,
a subdued scherzo. The central trio section, marked Meno mosso,
is more lyrical and relaxed. Like the first movement, the Poco adagio
has a two-part theme. Moody cello over strong piano chords make up the
first part and a canon growing in ferocity between the strings constitutes
the second part. Variants of each are heard in the midsection. A
Bohemian dance with shifting rhythms known as a furiant serves as the theme
of the sonata-rondo Finale: Allegro con brio. A
waltz-like second subject appears in the violin. The finale is marked
by a series of crescendos and pauses until the main theme of the first
movement, the waltz, and the furiant (this time in the major mode), all
reappear at the close.
--
Program notes by Jay Weitz, Senior Consulting Database Specialist for music,
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Dublin, Ohio.
He is a contributing performing arts critic for the weekly
alternative newspaper Columbus Alive
(http://www.columbusalive.com).