Anthea Kreston	Violin--Viola
Jason Duckles	Cello
Rieko Aizawa	Piano

Program:

PIANO TRIO IN G		CLAUDE DEBUSSY	1862-1918
Andantino con molto. Allegro Scherzo. Intermezzo Andante espressivo Finale: Appassionato Previous performance on our series: Golub-Kaplan-Carr Trio, 1992
TRIO FOR VIOLIN, CELLO, AND PIANO		LEONARD BERNSTEIN	1918-1990
Allegro non troppo--piu mosso Tempo di Marcia Largo-Allegro vivo e molto ritmico First performance on this series
Intermission
PIANO TRIO IN G MINOR		FREDERIC CHOPIN	1810-1849
Allegro Scherzo Adagio Finale Previous performance on our series: The Raphael Trio, 1991

About the Artists:

Formed in 1999, the Amelia Trio tours the world, introducing new and unfamiliar music besides the standard chamber repertory. The members are professors at Connecticut College and the Hartt School of Music. We celebrate their tenth anniversary with their third appearance on our series.

About the Music:

Debussy's parents sent him to the Paris Conservatoire at age 10, hoping he would become a piano virtuoso. Although he managed to win a second prize for a piano performance five years later, he showed more promise as a composer than as a pianist.

In 1880 he won first prize in score-reading, bringing him to the attention of a wealthy Russian widow whose millionaire husband had died of a heart attack. Nadine von Meck had eleven children, lots of money, and an insatiable love of music and travel. Best known as Tschaikovsky's patroness, von Meck hired Debussy for the summer to join her and her children on their travels throughout Europe. Debussy gave piano lessons to the children, performed trios with two Russian players who joined this road show in Florence, and played duets with von Meck, who liked him, calling him "Bussy" and "Petrouchka."

On this trip Debussy composed his piano trio, performing it with his two colleagues. On September 21, 1880 von Meck wrote to Tschaikovsky; "My Frenchman has written a very beautiful trio. I regret, dear friend, that it is not possible to send the work to you for your expert opinion, but he is returning to Paris." She added that the music reminded her of Massenet. However, there is no record of a public performance.

Debussy returned to Paris, resumed his studies, produced his great string quartet thirteen years later, and then wrote no more chamber music till the last years of his life. The trio was essentially forgotten for over a century. In 1979 several fragments of Debussy's autographed manuscript appeared at an auction in Paris and were purchased by the Pierpont Morgan Library of New York. These included all three parts for the first movement, and the cello part for the remaining movements. Then, three years later Ellwood Derr, a musicologist at University of Michigan, discovered most of the missing fragments among the donated papers of a piano pupil of Debussy. These included the full score of the remaining movements, except for the piano and violin parts for25 bars in the finale Derr fleshed out these and published the trio in Germany. It represents a triumph of modern musical research and cooperation among scholars.

Anthea Kreston tells us: "The first movement, instead of the usual form of an exposition, developmemt, and recapitulation, is more episodic and free-flowing. The Scherzo-Intermezzo which follows is very playful with all three players tossing the sparkling melodic lines back and forth. The third movement is very romantic and simply constructed with long, lyrical melodies and countermelodies, and the Finale has a fervent intensity throughout."

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Bernstein's parents were Russian-Jewish immigrants who settled in Massachusetts where his father established a successful business, marketing hairdressing products. Their elder son was a promising musician, but his father sent him to Harvard with the understanding that he was to study business and manage the family enterprise. The young Leonard, already an accomplished pianist, studied composition, became a protégé of Boston Symphony conductor Serge Koussevitzy, and took off on his unique meteoric career as composer, conductor, author, lecturer, and celebrity.

In 1937 he composed this trio-- his first instrumental work-- for a friend, Mildred Spiegel, who played in a piano trio. After a few performances, it languished till quite recently.

In 2004 violinist Lynn Chang learned about the trio from Rafael Hillyer, long-time violist of the Juilliard Quartet. When Hillyer and Bernstein were fellow-students at Harvard, they played the trio, and Hillyer saved his copy of the score. Chang believes that Bernstein may have written the fugal first movement as a gesture of defiance to his professor Walter Piston who had criticized an earlier Bernstein attempt to write a fugue.

Chang adds, "The second movement is a wonderful, humorous, witty, delightful scherzo in which you could almost hear slight elements or germs of the future tunes he was to write for his Broadway shows. I think it's a delight to play; the audience always chuckles after you finish it, and that's a lot of fun. The last movement begins quite divinely, almost French-like, which is not surprising, considering that Bernstein's favorite work at that time was (Ravel's piano concerto).."

Another violinist, Anthea Kreston, offers this take on the 19 year old Bernstein's effort:

"A charming, witty and entertaining composition, it begins with a slow and lyric introduction. written in a chromatic free-tonal style. The cello begins a six-note motif which is then passed on to the violin. In the second movement. listeners will be able to hear the foreshadowing of some fairly characteristic Broadway Bernstein sounds of, for example, On the Town. The third movement. is the least like Bernstein and the least distinctive; it has a derivative late- or post-Romantic feel, reminiscent especially of Brahms, and there is the sense that established classical composers had certainly influenced Bernstein. Throughout the whole composition, Bernstein balances the voices of the three instruments; none of them is ever given a dominant role."

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Chopin's father was French, went to Poland as manager of a snuff business which failed. He joined the army, switched to teaching, and became a schoolmaster. His son had a good musical education, spent some time as a piano virtuoso in Vienna, and then moved to Paris. He was almost unique among major composers in his concentration on the solo piano. Even Domenico Scarlatti, now known only by his brilliant keyboard works, turned out many operas during his long career.

Written in 1828, Chopin's trio is the first of only two chamber works. His great contemporary Robert Schumann wrote only piano music till he was over 30 and then went on to compose dozens of lieder, nearly a dozen chamber works and four symphonies. Listening to this beautiful work or to any of Chopin's 160-odd piano pieces, one wishes Chopin had lived longer-- and diversified his efforts. In 1833 Schumann called Chopin's trio "as noble as possible, more full of enthusiasm than the work of any other poet, original in the smallest details, and. as a whole, every note music and life."

Anthea Kreston tells us that a colleague suggested to her that the trio could be played with a viola. Anthea writes; "With a bit of research I was able to find a letter Chopin had written in 1839.(stating) that he should have written the violin part for the viola 'as the first string predominates in the violin and in my trio it is hardly used at all. The viola would, I think, accord better with the cello.'

"Since no viola part existed for the piece yet, I transcribed the violin part for viola. For the first rehearsal, I brought both my violin and viola, so we could make an educated comparison between the two versions. We were all struck by the difference-on the viola the trio came to life..

'The opportunity to learn the language of a new composer can bring with it challenges both technical and musical. This piece was a whole new world for us when the Amelias started learning it. The violist has to play many different roles- soloist, supportive partner, rhythmic drive; I can't recall a work of chamber music for the viola that comes close to the demands of this trio.

"Often the music is tinged with sadness, and phrases that seem driven to conclusion can change course.. In terms of character, Chopin might not immediately speak to you like other composers do. We had to peel away the meaning behind every note-there are few expression marks in the piece, so interpretation became the driving force behind every technical decision we made.. It is somewhat intangible-like a story that you may be hearing in a crowded room rather than alone in a one-on-one conversation."