Study Music - November 20

I once heard a radio presenter say she suspected Dmitri Shostakovich always had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek when composing. I was gobsmacked. I can think of no other composer capable of presenting such unrelenting pain, anger and suffering than Shostakovich. That can make him hard to listen to at times, I don't listen to his string quartets regularly, but it also makes for some amazing music.

His second piano trio is one of my favourite pieces. It delivers pain absolutely, there is great sorrow in it, especially in the haunting violin refrain in the opening and closing movements, but it is always moving. Some of the string quartets become whirlpools of sadness that drag you into the dark, this piano trio gives you no time for such morbidity. It is more like a cold river, pulling you on, sometimes slower sometimes faster, even bouncing you over rapids, but always forwards. It is not a happy river, but it is beautiful.

I discovered it years ago on an old Naxos album, but I was very excited today when I found it's included in the Seraphim Trio's monumental new release Trio Through Time on the ABC Classic label. Their playing is superb, lending just the right amount of energy to each phase of the river with the crystal clarity of clear, flowing water - hats off to the sound engineer as well. I look forward to listening to more of this extensive recording.

Study Music - 21 February 2019

For today's listening I turned to Anton Arensky. Initially I was looking for a concerto, but the most recent release (in fact the two most recent releases) was of his two piano trios, so how could I go past them? I picked the most recent, performed by Trio Carducci. Why was I looking for Arensky? Who is he? Good questions, which I would follow by why isn't he better known? Anton Arensky was a Russian composer who came between Rimsky-Korsakov (his teacher) and Rachmaninoff (his student). He is best known for his short pieces for solo piano, but that is a crime. His piano concerto is magnificent and, personally I prefer it to Rachmaninoff's (hear the howls of heresy).

So, his piano trios? Not as brilliant as the concerto, but still damn fine pieces of music. They're strong for chamber music, and the performance here is powerful, you lack nothing for fewer instruments than an orchestra here, but they can still bring in the appropriate pathos in the slower movements. There is a wonderful use of the three instruments in concert, they really work together here to produce that strong sound.

If you have Spotify you can check them out yourself here.

Dusting off some French Piano Trios

Tonight I decided to listen to an album that's been sitting on the virtual shelf collecting e-dust for a while now, the Joachim Trio's first collection of French piano trios for Naxos.

It opens with Debussy's Trio No 1 in A, which is classic Debussy, the fluidity and gentle beauty of the music is utterly captivating. The way he can carry the soul off on a journey, like a leaf floating down a river, here it eddies, here it ebbs, swirls and stills, but always moving and always enchanting. The short scherzo in the second movement is a favourite bit for me, a rollicking interruption to the sumptuousness of the first movement before a return to the slower gloss of the third. And the finale is something of them both, it has pace and grandeur, but still with the Debussy sheen.

Ravel's drama comes next, opening with the supposed 'Modere' which I take it means moderately. The first few bars are apt to that description and juxtapose intriguingly with the high finish of Debussy, but then we're launched into a hectic patter of piano with no hint of moderation. Only then, being Ravel, we are plunged back into a slow and evocative passage with the violin riding above the sombre cello and the piano adding high and low lights to fully round out what, on its own, would have to be described as a swoon. But then comes the 'Pantoum Assez vif', a high-paced rhythmic jolt reminiscent of the Assez vif movement in his String Quartet which is simply stunning.

Again there's a mood change as the third movement dives into the depths, slow and dark, as fluid as Debussy but with water more icy and the colour of Amber. From this depth we rise high as the violin turns bird and takes wing, with the cello a playful bear cub chasing it. At least, that's where my mind went listening to it this time. And it ends on an equal high to Debussy's trio.

The album finishes with Florent Schmitt's Tres lent, a short but poignant piece that shares the fluidity of the first two but lies very much in the sadder, slower end with no showy flights to lift us back to the joys of Debussy or Ravel's finale.

While all three composers share the fluidity and somewhat sumptuous feel to the music, they all have distinctive moods behind their works. What makes this recording so compelling is the way the Joachim Trio capture those moods. There's no mistaking which composer you're listening to at any point in time. They really know their stuff.

Miriam Hyde's Centenary

Today as I listened to Classic Breakfast with Emma Ayres I learnt that it's Miriam Hyde's centenary year. I also learnt there was an Australian composer called Miriam Hyde. Looks like maybe I should've known this already and I admit her face rings vague bells but really, how many Australian composers can you name? How many women composers? So how many Australian women ... anyway the point is I now know about her and would like to hear more of her music.

There's a good biography of her at the Australia Music Centre's website (click here for that). Turns out she was a successful composer, pianist, poet and musical educator with an OBE and AO and the International Woman of the Year (1991-2). Her piano concerti were performed by major English orchestras in the 1920s too, with her as the soloist.

Most of her music appears to have been written for piano, including learning pieces of various levels, some set to her poems. I found this performance of one on YouTube entitled Forest Stream and it does seem to flow and bubble as a stream winding through a forest and over rocks might do.

From that page I found a link to a recording - possibly of the WASO in 1965 with her as soloist but I can't swear to that - of her second Piano Concerto. It also has some text from a Keys to Music program Graham Abbott must have run last year about Miriam Hyde the composer. And I'm glad the link was there. It's a very good concerto, full of drama and virtuosity without being a show-off piece, and quite Romantic in feel, at least to my ear.

There was also this short Reverie, which may be one of her 'exam' pieces but has a lovely dream like quality to it; and this in turn led me to a piece called Spring. This performance is for an exam but still the piece is a wonderful evocation of that season so beloved of artists.

Which in a strange way leads me to what I will finish with, a quote from Miriam Hyde on music and her compositions - I feel my music can be a refuge for what beauty and peace can still be omnipresent...the triumph of good over evil. I make no apologies for writing from the heart.

I think we can all be thankful she did.

PS Closing tabs I discovered this performance of her Fantasy Trio by Trio Fidelis, and it's a good closer. There's more out there - get listening!