Wind Piano Trios
Jean-Fraçaix: 05. Trio for Oboe, Bassoon & Piano: II. Scherzo
14,95€
In this album, the Ausias March Trio presents four fundamental 20th-century works written for oboe, bassoon, and piano trios by composers Poulenc, Françaix, and Previn. Also featured is the interesting trio by Honduran composer Jorge Santos.
The Ausias March Trio is a chamber ensemble made up of Daniel Ibáñez Martínez, oboe, Esteve Casanova Vila, bassoon, and Claudio Carbó Montaner, piano. They began their musical work in 2019, performing original repertoire and premieres of newly created works. In this respect, the trio does a great job of expanding the list of pieces that enrich the repertoire through commissions from different Spanish and international composers and the performance of numerous premieres. Among the dedicated works they own, pieces by National Music Composition Prizes such as Tomás Marco: “Aulodías”, José Luis Turina: “Tres senyals” or Gabriel Erkoreka: “Aulos” stand out, as well as works by José Zárate, Javier Costa, Teo Aparicio, David Penedés Fasanar, Llorens Barber, Miguel Angel Sarrió, Juan Carlos Sempere Bomboí, Francisco Valor, José Rafael Pasqual Vilaplana, Joan Alborch, Óscar Vidal, José María Bru, Andrés Valero Castells, Josep Ros, Carles Lizondo, Marc Garcia, Ángela Gómez, Gordon Lawson, Jaume Blai Santonja, José del Valle and Venus Rey, as well as the adaptation of ‘Homenaje a Mompou’ by Antón García Abril.
BOOKLET
14,95€
Ausias March Trio
The Ausias March Trio is a chamber ensemble made up of Daniel Ibáñez Martínez, oboe, Esteve Casanova Vila, bassoon, and Claudio Carbó Montaner, piano. They began their musical work in 2019, performing original repertoire and premieres of newly created works. In this respect, the trio does a great job of expanding the list of pieces that enrich the repertoire through commissions from different Spanish and international composers and the performance of numerous premieres. Among the dedicated works they own, pieces by National Music Composition Prizes such as Tomás Marco: “Aulodías”, José Luis Turina: “Tres senyals” or Gabriel Erkoreka: “Aulos” stand out, as well as works by José Zárate, Javier Costa, Teo Aparicio, David Penedés Fasanar, Llorens Barber, Miguel Angel Sarrió, Juan Carlos Sempere Bomboí, Francisco Valor, José Rafael Pasqual Vilaplana, Joan Alborch, Óscar Vidal, José María Bru, Andrés Valero Castells, Josep Ros, Carles Lizondo, Marc Garcia, Ángela Gómez, Gordon Lawson, Jaume Blai Santonja, José del Valle and Venus Rey, as well as the adaptation of ‘Homenaje a Mompou’ by Antón García Abril.
Poulenc Trio
Among the chamber trio groups, the oboe, bassoon, and piano formation received a key work for its consolidation in 1926, when Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) completed his trio FP 43 dedicated to Manuel de Falla (1876-1946). The composition began in 1923, first in drafts for strings and piano, an idea that was transformed during the compositional process, to be finally executed in the expressive and penetrating double reeds texture of oboe and bassoon. Poulenc would complete it two years later in a hotel in Cannes, and it was himself on piano who would participate in its premiere in Paris with oboist Roger Lamorlette and bassoonist Gustave Dhérin, creators of the Columbia label recording they made together, and which was released on two 78 rpm vinyl records in 1928.
Poulenc was a piano student of Ricardo Viñes (1875-1943) and met de Falla at his Parisian home in 1918, at the time when he, de Falla, was preparing, together with Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929) and Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), the staging of the ballet The Three-Cornered Hat, which would premiere the following year in London. Six years later, and to mark Falla’s fiftieth birthday in 1926, a concert was held at the Opéra-Comique in the French capital, where his works La vida breve, El amor brujo and El Retablo de Maese Pedro were performed, with Wanda Landowska on the harpsichord. Poulenc attended this tribute and was fascinated by the Polish harpsichordist, to whom he would dedicate his Concierto campestre, which she would premiere in 1929.
Poulenc’s admiration for Falla lasted a lifetime, as was evident in various letters: “Dear Falla […] Your music, which I have always adored, evokes Spain to such an extent that many times, at night, I let my thoughts wander to the sound of the phonograph, in the direction of the Carrera del Darro, the Albaicín, the Generalife” (Paris, 1932). They met for the last time at the 2nd Venice International Film Festival that same year, attending the morning rehearsals of his Retablo together, and of whose last image of the Cadiz master Poulenc recalls in one of his letters as “that of a man, or rather, of a Zurbarán friar, praying in a church in Venice.”
Written in three movements and lasting less than 14 minutes, this trio of electrifying freshness and moments of profound sensitivity is an example of creative effectiveness and compositional inspiration, and it represents a milestone in the French composer’s chamber music. A devotee of chamber music for woodwinds, Poulenc’s compositional corpus includes a youthful sonata for two clarinets (1918), another for clarinet and bassoon, written immediately before this trio, the sextet for piano, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn (1940) or the sonatas for flute, oboe and clarinet, all of them with piano (1956-1962), which crowned his work as the culmination and epitaph of his musical creation.
The playful opening Presto, preceded by a lent minor-mode piano introduction, is structured in three sharply contrasting parts. Marked by the sensual exuberance and harmonic richness of the leisurely central section, the main theme proceeds to a grandiose culmination that leads to another appearance of the Presto, followed by a coda that reaffirms the key of A major. The second movement, Andante con moto, is a romance in lied form, where the constant pulse of sixteenth notes builds a loving bed of constant melodic dialogue between the three instruments. Replete with altered chords and concluding in the key of F minor, it thus prepares the tonal atmosphere of the final movement, Très vif, written in rondo form in the key of D-flat major. This rapid tarantella constitutes a constant and playful triplet beat, interrupted only by a march-like interlude that leads to the reappearance of the passage from the coda of the first movement, thus consummating the unity of the work through a brilliant final fanfare.
Claudio Carbó
Jean Françaix Trio
Born thirteen years later than Poulenc, the musical talent of Jean Françaix (1912-1997) was already evident at the age of ten, when the composer and music teacher Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) wrote to her mother: “Madam, I don’t see why we should waste time teaching him harmony. He already knows harmony. I don’t know how, but he knows it; he was born knowing it. Let’s work on counterpoint.” And in the words of M. Ravel (1875-1939): “Among the gifts of the child, I observe above all the most fruitful that an artist can possess: that of curiosity; these precious gifts must not be repressed, neither now nor ever, nor run the risk of letting this young sensitivity wither away.”
This precious musical gift was especially obvious throughout his piano studies from the age of fourteen under the guidance of Isidor Philipp (1863-1958). This outstanding teacher, partly a disciple of the long-standing pianist, composer, and pedagogue Georges Mathias (1826-1920), disciple of F. Chopin (1810-1849), and on the other hand of Stephen Heller (1813-1888), pupil of C. Czerny (1791-1857), and of Théodore Ritter (1840-1886), a learner of H. Berlioz (1803-1869) and F. Liszt (1811-1886), marked the development of the young Françaix until he became a renewed follower of the late post-romantic tradition, with his own neoclassical language, full of originality and freshness.
The aesthetic closeness with F. Poulenc was already emerging in the young Françaix after the premiere of his opera Le Diable boiteux (The Lame Devil, 1937), a short comic opera for tenor, bass and small orchestra, of which the former commented: “Your Diable boiteux is a delightful masterpiece full of lightness and poetic vision”. They shared the bill in 1956 with the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, performing the Concerto in D minor for two pianos FP61 and his Concertino, both composed in 1932. Françaix orchestrated the Histoire de Babar (1963) and dedicated to him, among other works and as a posthumous tribute, his Musique Pour Faire Plaisir (1984) for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, two bassoons and two horns.
With a generous chamber production in which wind instruments are essential and are combined in various settings, the Trio for oboe, bassoon and piano (1994) is one of Françaix’s last compositions, along with a Quartet for clarinet, bass horn, bass clarinet and piano (1995), the Sonata for flute and piano (1996) and Two pieces for bassoon, written the same year and works which would conclude his musical production. For this instrument he wrote two concertos, one as a soloist and another as a duo with piano, while for the oboe his Quadruple Concerto and Concerto Grosso. Returning to the trio in question, it was commissioned by the International Society of Double Reeds of Rotterdam and dedicated to W. Waterhouse (1931-2007), a brilliant bassoonist and member of the Melos Ensemble, with whom he carried out extensive concert tours and recording works, as well as the first performance of Benjamin Britten’s (1913-1976) War Requiem under the direction of the composer in 1962, in the new Coventry cathedral, destroyed in WW2.
Structured in four movements, the work exhibits an admirable cohesion, and the musical discourse flows with sincere naturalness, from the initial Allegro moderato, preceded by a brief introduction, with whose thematic cell the movement closes, to the lively Finale, a brilliant movement that oscillates between quaternary and triple pulse. Françaix previously placed a lively Scherzo in 3/8 time, where the rhythmic pulse ingeniously shifts to 5/8 time in the central trio, now in minor mode, preparing the peaceful atmosphere of the cantabile Andante, the third movement of unusual simplicity and tenderness.
This chamber music gem is a compendium of Françaix’s distinctive style, already evident in his 1932 Concertino, echoes of which can be heard, despite being composed more than sixty years later. Writing music for the audience (and the performers, of course) to enjoy is part of its composer’s aesthetic credo, in which he once stated: “All I ask of my listeners is that they open their ears and be brave enough to decide whether they like my music or not. I don’t want any intermediary between my listeners and myself trying to influence their judgment one way or another. They must remember that they are free human beings, not obedient automatons. I want them to crush snobbery, fashion, and envy with the power of common sense and enjoy my music if it gives them pleasure, which, of course, I hope it will…”
Claudio Carbó
André Previn Trio
The versatile musician André Previn (1929-2019), born seventeen years after Françaix, is an indisputable figure in the interpretation, direction and composition of the second half of the 20th century going into the present. With a childhood marked by his precocious musical talents and his Jewish ancestry, he emigrated from his native Berlin to Los Angeles at the age of nine, passing through Paris. From his youth, he successfully cultivated genres as varied as music for Hollywood, jazz, and the composition of a large number of works, including two operas and twelve concertos for soloists and orchestra.
In the American country he was able to be under the tutelage of the composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968), who settled in Los Angeles for the same reasons. He had met Manuel de Falla at the 1932 Venice Biennale, a meeting place for important composers of the first third of the 20th century and a space of musical impetus in the interwar period, marked by the new Viennese School and the consequences of the 1925 premiere of Wozzeck, the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg (1885-1935), at the Staatliche Oper in Berlin, under the baton of Erich Kleiber (1890-1956).
The signed contracts with various film studios that the violinist Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987) led Cartelnuovo-Tedesco to make a huge musical production for this genre and to count as disciples Jerry Gordsmith (1929-2004), Henry Mancini (1924-1994), John Williams (1932) and André Previn, whom would dedicate one of his Greeting Cards, in this case the first number of op. 170, a Tango (on the name of Andre Previn) for solo piano (1960). In these musical souvenirs that he wrote for his friends, Castelnuovo-Tedesco distributed the notes of the scale in a correlative manner with each of the letters of the alphabet, to construct the musical motif that generates the work according to the name and surname of the dedicatee.
It was in the sixties when Previn began a growing and successful career as an orchestral conductor, establishing himself as the leading musician on the podium of the London Symphony Orchestra and later on that of other top-level orchestras (Los Angeles, Oslo, Pittsburgh, etc.), an activity that he combined with composition and piano performance, always faithful to a particular stylistic symbiosis evident in his heterogeneous musical idiom.
Composed in 1994 as a multiple commission from the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust and dedicated to Jeffrey Gold, the trio for oboe, bassoon and piano was premiered at Alice Tully Hall in New York City on January 31, 1996, with the composer at the piano, Stephen Taylor, oboe and Dennis Godburn, bassoon.
The first and dynamic movement, Lively, presents the syncopation and rhythmic swing typical of Jazz -style, with a concerted treatment between the woodwinds and piano in ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth chords and arpeggios. The lyrical and meditative central section presents the melodic discourse in different registers, preparing for a more dramatic development of the three themes, which will lead to a brief appearance of the initial motif to be broken up until the conclusion.
As the dramatic core of the work, Previn presents a Slow second movement in which the piano unfolds a meditative and dreamy atmosphere, a preamble to the dialogue-like response between the oboe and bassoon, with repeated descending designs that eventually merge to reach the movement’s climax. The joyful finale, Jaunty, with great rhythmic variety and constant time signature changes, assimilates the spirit of a jam session with continuous interventions and chases between reeds and keys. After the direction “a little faster”, the last section is characterized by rhythmic and syncopated deformation from the initial theme, accompanied by persistent hemiolas until the conclusion, when the three finally close the piece in unison.
Claudio Carbó
Jorge Santos Trio
The Honduran trombonist and composer Jorge Santos (1974) wrote his Trio for oboe, bassoon and piano after completing his advanced studies during his three-year stay in Switzerland, under the direction of Karl Lassauer (1945) on trombone and the composer and guitarist Bruno Karrer (1956), trained at the Winterthur Conservatory and with whom he was able to enrich his theoretical training focused on musical creation. This new generation of Central European musicians, trained simultaneously in traditional musical contents together with new creation settings and trends derived from Darmstadt, adapted the training to their expectations and artistic qualities; as in the case at hand, where, starting from the aesthetics and techniques of the classical avant-garde, Santos develops his personal and independent voice with influences from Latin music and jazz, seasoned with expressionist modality and atonality.
Another important aspect of Santos’s training was his work as a solo trombone player in the National Symphony Orchestra of Honduras, where he developed his sensitivity and search for combinations between the diverse timbres of musical instruments, as well as his awareness of their qualities and difficulties in blending and performing in the orchestral setting. His published works include Garifuna Brass, for brass quintet; Vida, for woodwind quintet and Aventura fantástica, for chamber orchestra with piano and guitar ad lib., in addition to various works for big band.
The trio for oboe, bassoon and piano was published in 2002 by the GS Musikverlag in Leipzig, the German city where, at the instigation of the composer F. Mendelssohn (1809-1847), his Leipziger Konservatorium had been established many years earlier, in 1843. Written in two movements, the first, [Allegro], of intense rhythmic activity, presents measured ostinatos in both sections, especially in the central one, where it combines the polyrhythm of triplets and sixteenth-note duplets between woodwinds and piano up to the bridge, where it heightens the pitches of the oboe and bassoon, thus returning to the initial theme. The second movement, Andante con moto, of greater expressionist lyricism, initially presents the theme in the piano, to continue with the varied repetition in a trio that would lead to a new thematic transformation, now by inverse movement of the initial motif. The piece concludes with a grand final section, Majestuoso, whose generating motif was previously the tail of the initial theme, now in both oboe and bassoon, but more carefully crafted and with thematic extensions previously introduced by the piano.
Claudio Carbó
