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MUSIC AT CUC PRESENTS THE DAMOCLES TRIO IN CONCERT
Notes by Adam Kent
Piano Trio in E Major, K. 542
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Mozart composed his Piano Trio in E Major, K. 542 in early summer 1788, during a burst
of productivity which also saw the creation of his Symphony No. 39 in Eb Major, K. 543,
the Piano Sonata in C Major, K. 545, the violin sonata in F Major, K. 547, and the
Adagio and Fugue in C Minor for string quartet, K. 546. No doubt economics played a
role in the composer’s frenzied activity: his income had declined significantly since the
mid-1780’s; subscription sales for a set of string quintets had fallen short of expectations;
and Don Giovanni—so triumphant in Prague, the city of its premiere—had failed to gain
much of a foothold in Vienna. Clearly, Mozart was composing with an eye to a series of
subscription concerts he had scheduled for later that summer in Vienna.
Many commentators discern intimations of Mozart’s final style in the E Major Piano
Trio, a style which would reach full fruition in The Magic Flute, the Bb Major Piano
Concerto, K. 595, and the Clarinet Concerto, K. 622, all from his final year. The simple
serenity of many of the trio’s principal themes certainly suggests this mature style, and
the wealth of imitative counterpoint points to the composer’s heightened fascination with
Baroque-era compositional procedures. At the same time, the trio looks back to the
virtuosic display of the earlier piano concertos, which had earned Mozart such
prominence with the Viennese concert-going public a few years earlier. Indeed, the outer
movements feature an abundance of flashy soloistic material for the violin and piano.
The first movement is a traditional sonata form, in which the first theme is initially
presented by the piano alone and then reprised and expanded by the entire ensemble. The
theme’s poignant chromatic descent is cleverly recast as a jaunty concluding theme and
even figures in the second theme’s accompaniment. These transformations provide unity
in the face of such thematic diversity.
The second movement is one of those structural hybrids of which Mozart was so fond.
The simple main theme, which recurs at regular intervals throughout the movement, as
well as the highly sectionalized phrase structure suggest rondo form. On the other hand,
the movement’s tonal scheme—secondary material presented in the dominant and
reprised at the end in the tonic—and the harmonically and contrapuntally adventurous
middle section could also be construed as a sonata form. Finally, an argument can be
made for ABA form, if one hears the central episode as sandwiched between two similar
flanks. The movement’s charm and grace linger in the memory long after debates about
its form have been exhausted, however.
The third movement is another hybrid, synthesizing the square-cut phrasing and thematic
recurrences of a rondo with the tonal layout of a sonata form. Especially noteworthy is
the folkloric simplicity of the main themes, often embellished in a gleefully competitive
spirit by the piano and violin.
1Requiem Trio, Op. 98
1959)
Salvador Brotons (b.
Salvador Brotons was born to a musical family in Barcelona. He studied at the Barcelona
Conservatory of Music, earning diplomas in flute, composition and orchestral
conducting, before continuing his training in the U.S. X. Montsalvatge and R. Johnson
were his primary composition teachers, and A. Ros-Marb and P. Spurgeon coached him
in conducting. Dr. Brotons has enjoyed a distinguished association with the United States
dating back to his doctoral studies at Florida State University as a recipient of a Fulbright
Scholarship in the mid-1980's.
Salvador Brotons's extensive experience as an orchestral musician includes stints as
principal flute of the Orquestra del Teatre del Liceu de Barcelona (1977-1985) and flutist
in the Orquestra Ciutat de Barcelona (1981-1985). His activities as an orchestral director
include serving as Assistant Conductor of the Florida State University Symphony
Orchestra (1986-1987) and Music Director and Conductor of the Oregon Sinfonietta
(1990-1993), the Mittleman Jewish Community Orchestra (1989-1991), and the Portland
State University Symphony Orchestra (1987- 1997). Dr. Brotons has been the Conductor
and Music Director of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (WA) since 1991 and also
directs the Vall s Symphony Orchestra in his native Barcelona and the Balearic Islands
Symphony Orchestra in Palma de Mallorca. His engagements as guest conductor include
assignments with the Radio Prague Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of South
Africa, the Raanana Symphonette in Israel, the Moscou Virtuosi, the Blue Lake Festival
Orchestra, the Columbia Symphony, the York Symphony Orchestra in Pennsylvania, the
Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra, the RTVE Orchestra in Spain, the Orquestra de la
Comunidad de Madrid, the Asturias Orchestra, the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and
the Orchestra of the Liceu in Barcelona.
Salvador Brotons has written over 80 pieces mainly for orchestra and chamber groups.
He has received such prizes as the Spanish National Orchestra Award (1977) for his Four
Pieces for Strings, the Golden Youth Award (1980), the City of Barcelona Award on two
occasions (1983 and1986), the Southeastern Composers League Award (1986) for his
Sinfonietta da Camera, The Madison University Flute Choir Composition Award (1987)
for his Flutes Suite, and the Queen Sofia Prize (1991) for his Virtus for orchestra. His
numerous commissions include an opera in two acts, Reverend Everyman (Florida State
University, 1989), Sonata da Concerto for trumpet and band (University of Wyoming,
1992), Commemorativa for orchestra (RTVE Orchestra, Spain), Concerto for Flute and
Orchestra (Conferenza del Mediterraneo, Sicily, Italy, 1997), his musical in two acts,
Before Silence (Generalitat de Catalunya, 1998), the Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra
(Cervantes Foundation of Warsaw, Poland, 1999), and the Woodwind Quintet No. 3
(University of Arizona, 2000). Dr. Brotons's compositions have been recorded on EMI,
Auvidis, Albany Records, Claves, and RNE.
Salvador Brotons's music is characterized by passages of deeply expressive lyricism
alternating with sections of complex, driving rhythms. A keen sense of traditional
classical form provides unity, and–for all its spiky dissonance–an underlying sense of
tonality is often discernible in his work. The music of the great twentieth-century Soviet
composers seems to have been a particular influence on Dr. Brotons, and in fact their
influence is often more strongly felt in his compositions than that of his Spanish
predecessors. The composer has provided the following notes on his Requiem Trio:
"The Requiem Trio was written during the summer of 2004 commissioned by the New
York-based Damocles Trio. Pianist Adam Kent, violinist Airi Yoshioka, and cellist
Sibylle Johner have wonderfully played several times my Trio Op. 39 as well as several
other of my chamber music pieces.
"Thinking about the message of this new trio, the catastrophic images of the New York
terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 came to my mind. Thus, I decided to write a trio as
a tribute to the city of New York and to all the people who lost their lives on that
unforgettable day."The four-movement piece quotes the titles from some parts of the
Requiem Mass. Dies irae is the image of the sorrow, exasperation, brutality and grief of
the event. After a slow introduction where the cello introduces the plaintive main theme,
a brutal Allegro follows with great rhythmic vitality. The music recapitulates highly
modified, but the tempo is unchanged in a forceful drive towards the end.
"The next three movements are linked together forming a second unified entity. They
have independent thematic material but are planned to be played without interruption.
The Tuba mirum is a short powerful description of two worlds: The fatal destructive ff of
the piano and the pitiful and distant lines of the violin and cello claiming for peace in the
high register. Lacrimosa is a funeral march in memory of the victims. It is a concise
movement in "mountain form" starting in the deep low register of the cello, rising to a
big, almost orchestral climax to return to the initial somber ambiance. A pedal figure is
always present in the left hand of the piano.
"Lux aeterna comes in complete contrast to the Lacrimosa. It is the image of the ethereal,
the hope for justice, the blessed eternal light we all visualize. The violin and cello
harmonics along with piano also in its highest register very softly bring back the main
theme of the first movement fading out seeking heaven."
Piano Trio No. 2
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)
Largely through his connection to the Polish pianist Arthur Rubinstein, in the 1920’s
Villa-Lobos relocated to Paris, where the music of his native Brazil was much in vogue.
Villa-Lobos’s music must have represented Third-World exoticism to the French concertgoing public, and the composer happily obliged his admirers with evocation after
evocation of Brazilian folklore and popular culture.
Curiously, it is in the many works Villa-Lobos composed before leaving Brazil that the
influence of contemporary French music—especially the Impressionism of Debussy and
Ravel—is most keenly felt. The second piano trio, composed in Rio in 1915, is a good
example. In its frequent reliance on whole-tone and pentatonic scales, modality, and
cyclical form, the trio reveals a deep awareness of early twentieth-century French musical
culture. The work’s Brazilian characteristics are embodied not so much in the conscious
quotation or imitation of folk materials, but in rhythmic elements which derive from the
composer’s tropical milieu.
The first movement is a loosely constructed, highly episodic sonata form, which presents
numerous themes subject to further development in the third and fourth movements. Most
characteristic are the frequent shifts between rhythmic groupings of two and three beats,
suggesting at times the indolent sway of a samba. The second movement, subtitled
Berceuse-Barcarolla, unfolds as a large-scale ABA form, in which the outer sections
present a languid tune over an ongoing accompaniment based on sixteenth-note
quintuplets. In the central section the piano presents a contrasting theme, which is
eventually reprised by the strings. The third movement is a rhythmically complex
scherzo, concluding with a madcap coda, which combines themes from the earlier
movements in a poly-rhythmic maze. The fourth movement, “Final,” is another sonata
form, which reprises and transforms themes from all the previous movements. The
writing tends towards the garishly romantic, although the rhythmic complexities and
advanced harmonic language bespeak a decidedly twentieth-century aesthetic.