CD-Release Trio E.T.A.: Romantic trio border crossings
The first stage takes the trio, which also won the 2021 German Music Competition, to César Franck’s Trio in F-sharp Minor op. 1, No. 1, for piano, violin and cello. This work, which officially opens Franck’s work catalogue — the then 17-year-old Franck published his Opus 1 with three piano trios in 1841 — contains passages of an almost symphonic character. Violinist Elene Meipariani finds it to be the most convincing trio of the cycle: “This work reminds me of a feeling that is sometimes hard to grasp — of the moment when you believe with youthful openness: everything is possible; of a creative energy that knows no limits. For us, it is not just cleverly structured but a work that gives us the feeling of complete freedom on the stage: a freedom underpinned by deep, boundless confidence.”
The journey continues on to the Norwegian Romantic realm with Edvard Grieg’s Andante in C minor EG 116 — a true solitaire among the works of this “nature mystic of music”, written in 1878 and is Grieg’s only contribution to the piano trio genre.
The Romantic triad is rounded out by the Trio in A major Anh. 4/5 attributed to Johannes Brahms. According to the musicologist Ernst Bücken, it was written in the summer of 1853. The attribution history of this four-movement work lasting some 33 minutes is both confusing and fascinating: it was published in 1938, still under Brahms’ name, and had previously been performed as such, but the doubts about its authorship grew constantly, especially as the unsigned manuscript disappeared without trace.
