Lucerne Piano Trio

From a private happening to a public event: What had begun in the 18th century as an intimate coming-together of different musicians in a “chamber” at home soon grew so much in popularity that “chamber music” – like the piano trio (comprising a piano, violin and cello) – began to be heard in the great concert halls. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy wrote his first Piano Trio in d minor in 1839, at the age of 30, by which time he was already a well-established composer and pianist. As was fitting in light of these dual gifts of his, Mendelssohn himself took on the piano part of his Trio at its first performance in 1840. Robert Schumann, in his guise as music critic for his Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, offered lofty hymns of praise: “This masterly trio of the present day”, he wrote, confirmed Mendelssohn as “the Mozart of the 19th century” and as “the most luminous musician, who sees through the contradictions of our age clearer than any others and is able to reconcile them”.

Germaine Tailleferre also performed many of her own compositions – after all, she was a trained pianist. But by the time her Piano Trio was published in 1978, she was already 86 years old and left its first performance in the hands of others. Tailleferre’s Trio initially remained known only to her private circle. Its first three movements were composed as early as 1916–17, and it was not until some 60 years later that she added a contrasting fourth movement and had the work performed in public for the first time. She was the only woman member of “Les Six” and developed her own, distinctive style in Paris in the 1920s, combining Neoclassical and Impressionist elements with modern influences – something that actually lends her oeuvre a certain timeless quality. Darius Milhaud, another member of Les Six, attested to her seemingly eternal youthfulness when he remarked that Tailleferre was “always 20 years old”.

Paul Schoenfield – yet another trained concert pianist – wrote his Café Music nine years after Tailleferre wrote her Trio. He was inspired by a time he was hired by a restaurant in Minneapolis that had suddenly found itself without its resident bar pianist. Schoenfield stood in for him, and spent the evening combining classical music with folk-inspired reminiscences of klezmer music and other dance elements. He himself played in the world premiere of his Café Music. He wanted to create a kind of “high-class dinner music” that “could be played in a restaurant, but also might just about find its way into the concert hall”. And in that, Schoenfield succeeded – as is amply demonstrated by tonight’s performance in the Andermatt Concert Hall.