>> David Plylar: It's great
to see you this evening.
My name is David Plylar.
I'm with the music division
of the Library of Congress.
And I'm extremely happy
to have you all here
for this performance
of the Tetzlaff Trio.
I guess they really go by
Tetzlaff-Tetzlaff-Vogt,
but it's a bit of a -- a hand --
a earful to try to
get through that.
So tonight I'm going to play
this by ear a little bit.
We had a -- we have a little of
technical difficulty with sound,
so I'm not going to be able
to play sound examples
like I wanted to.
So I'll try not to
make it too dry.
I'll do my best to not do that.
Because it's always easier
to hear with the sound.
But we'll take a look at the
three trios that we're going
to hear tonight with a focus
more on the Mozart and Dvorak.
The reason for that was --
and we'll still talk
about the Shostakovich --
but the reason for
that is two-fold.
One, I figured that maybe
the Shostakovich is the most
well-known piece
of this program.
That may or may not be true.
But there's -- there's some
more information in your notes.
And you can also check out more
about it elsewhere as well.
But the -- the other one
is that we have access
to public domain sheet
music for the other two.
So we have more examples
to draw on from there.
So the types of things that I
want to talk about are going
to be looking at -- and I tend
to do this whenever we
do piano trio concerts.
I think it's really interesting
to think about orchestration.
And usually when one
thinks about orchestration,
you think of, like, you
know, having a big orchestra
and how do you write for --
how do you divide up the melody
and accompanimental parts
across this large spectrum
of an orchestra that you have.
But in some ways --
and Shostakovich is
known to have said this;
I'm paraphrasing this -- it's
easier to write orchestral music
than it is to write
chamber music well [Laughs].
And part of that is that you
have a limited number of voices
that you're dealing, and you
have extremely transparent --
the sound is very
transparent to people.
So when you start to do
something that's doesn't work,
it's much more obvious
than it is in an orchestra
where you can cover it up with
a -- you know, give a big,
you know, gong ring or something
like that and, you know,
cover up your --
your sins that way.
So when we look at
early piano trios
and specifically I'm thinking of
Haydn and Mozart trios, and --
and by the time Mozart
was writing this trio
that we're going to hear tonight
in -- in B flat from 1786,
he was producing
trios that were --
started to have greater
independence of voices.
Prior to this you -- you started
-- you really had these --
it was almost like a sonata or
something like that for piano
that had string accompaniment.
And so -- at least that's the
way people characterize that.
I have a little bit of a --
take a little bit of issue
with that characterization just
because it is a very
different sound if you were
to lose those strings [Laughs].
So I think Haydn would
probably agree and say,
"Hey, keep the strings."
But in any case, it starts to
become a bit clearer why --
how a composer might do
something interesting
in a chamber context when we get
to this particular
trio by Mozart.
It came at a kind of
a productive time.
He just finished The
Marriage of Figaro;
he was just about to write
the Prague Symphony; he had --
he wrote I'd say about
a dozen major works
within a six-month span
[Laughs] of this time.
It's hard to think of the --
how quickly some of
these composers worked
and how strange it is
for us to kind of go back
and pick these pieces apart that
were maybe not in their heads
for all that long before they
just moved on to the next piece.
But it's what makes -- you know,
what we make these commentaries
about ways that they're
developing.
That's why you kind of start
to trace these things piece
to piece is because they
didn't spend, you know,
five years working
on this single piece.
So anyway, we'll take a look
at the -- at the opening.
You'll see that there's
actually --
it is kind of piano-heavy
[Laughs] you might notice.
So -- and we'll hear
this, it's lovely.
You'll like it, I'm sure.
But what you'll see are
there -- there are -- oops --
there are some -- you can see
that the cello is
basically playing a bass line
and adding a little bit of
harmonic coloration at the end,
but it doesn't do anything
that the piano's not doing.
You'll see that the violin,
whenever it speaks, it has,
like, a little turn figure
that it throws in there.
But that's -- that's pretty
much it for the beginning.
But what Mozart has done in
this very, very small space
of time is he's introduced
elements that are going
to be kind of important
for the entire movement
and actually for
the entire piece.
There's a lot of -- of
elements that kind of continue
on throughout the entire piece.
So I've just identified
a couple of those.
And in the notes
they're labeled W,
but in this case they're
in the red squares.
And that's just the -- the
main theme, the first thing.
If you look at that top
line where you have that --
the very top line, F, E, G,
F, and you look over to the --
to the one on the right where
the violin is playing at,
eventually the violin
comes in to join.
And this is a type of almost
like mimetic development
or development through mimicry.
So it creates a different
texture
when you have piano presentation
and then piano plus
another instrument,
in this case the violin.
Nothing terribly profound there.
But then you also have
these -- these little tags,
little melodic tags I call
them that the violin introduce
at the beginning that seem like
three-away gestures at first,
just kind of, like,
little commentary
on what's been heard
in the piano.
Eventually, though,
that starts to take
on a greater melodic
significance.
You'll hear this.
There's not a ton
of examples here,
but you can see them
in the red squares.
There's yet another
element that's introduced,
and it's this kind of
more actually dealing
with the rhythm.
It's the idea of a dot dot
dot da, just four eighth notes
with the last one being
on -- on a downbeat.
You'll understand why
I'm focusing on that
in just a few minutes
when I get to that spot.
In this example I've
kind of boxed out a bunch
of those examples that
are just here in the red.
And then the blue ones show
just this little half-step
alternation idea that
comes into play as well.
So these are just a little --
little ideas that by themselves
don't really mean a whole lot.
You'll recognize them, but then
when Mozart starts to use them
over and over again and put them
into kind of different contexts,
they take on a greater meaning.
So as we just saw those little
melodic tags that the --
that the violin had,
I had mentioned
that it would have a
greater significance.
As we get going, we
start to see this notion
of doubling and alternating.
So up at the top there you
see that initial doubling
that I showed with the
violin doubling the piano
down an octave.
So it's kind of in this middle
register that's not otherwise
occupied by anybody.
And then down at
the bottom in the --
in the blue box you'll see an
alternation starting to develop
between this turn idea and then
that little dot dot dot da
idea [Laughs] in the blue box.
You'll see that's
going with the violin
to the piano, violin to piano.
It's important here to notice
that these are just two
voices; where's the cello?
Taking a break.
[ Laughter ]
So they -- they --
it's kind of --
it's one of those things
that composers of piano trios
and other types of
things will do this a lot,
they'll change the orchestration
so it focuses on two members
of the group or three out of
four, things like that just
to give -- to change
the texture.
When you get to the red
ones, you'll start to see
that the turn figure is
starting to become more
and more prominent and it's
alternating back and forth.
But that doesn't mean that it's
necessarily giving us greater
melodic information,
but it's just a type
of development of the material.
Then we start to
see that this notion
of alternating is continuing
but now with the cello adding
at least one held tone.
The cellist is still a
little bit on the bored side.
But we have what you'll notice
in the top little two-measure
example is that the --
the same exact pitches are
played in the piano first
in the top and then are played
by the violin, and then back,
and then back to
the violin again.
So see this kind of
going back and forth?
It doesn't matter so much that
you can hear this by looking
at it, but you can
see the pattern.
It's just a pattern
that's getting repeated
in different ways.
And, of course, the way that
Mozart puts that together,
we like to listen to it.
So that's kind of a key factor.
But one of the other things
that's kind of unusual
about this is that -- at
least to my ear with a piece
like this -- is that when you
get to that bottom section,
the doubling starts to continue
in kind of a -- where the --
the right-hand of the piano is
in a very high octave while
the violin is below it.
And it just has this very
interesting textural effect.
I'd like to show you that
example, but you'll have
to just wait and hear it.
It's just something that's
unusual and, of course,
Mozart as a keyboardist and
performer of viola, violin,
anything like that would have
known exactly how this would
sound in the contexts.
Of course, the keyboard
instrument matters, too,
but we're not going to
get into that right now.
Later as this -- as
this piece gets going,
we start to have a role reversal
where first the piano was the
one presenting the material
in the main; we now start to
have the main melodic material
in thirds and sixths
presented in the strings
against the little
filigree ornamental figures
in the piano this time.
So that kind of a
thing happens --
let this be one example
among many.
So these are -- this is
in no way comprehensive.
Another thing that Mozart
starts to do as it gets going --
and he's actually been doing
this since the very beginning,
but it starts to
become more clear,
especially as we recollect
what has happened before,
imagining that we're hearing
this for the first time --
that dot dot dot da thing starts
to become a bit more prominent.
And we start to hear it -- it
starts to be -- it starts --
its significance starts to be
-- starts to become more clear.
And especially as we start
to get it some little cadential
passages towards the end
of the movement, we hear an
ornament that comes before.
You see those little
tiny notes [Laughs]?
So you hear this kind of a --
a leap that comes
before in the red boxes
with the piano, violin, piano.
But you'll hear in
each of these --
can you see my cursor on there?
So -- so here's the dot
dot dot da right there,
and then here's the --
the -- the ornament.
Here's the ornament there and
then the dot dot dot ba da.
And then here's another
ornament, dot dot dot da.
And then same over here is
the alternation again --
dot dot dot da, dot dot dot da.
It sounds a little Beethovenian
but dot dot dot da --
but Mozart came first.
[ Laughter ]
And that is now kind of saying
that this is going to be --
what's interesting about
that, it doesn't seem --
this seems like I'm belaboring,
like, this little tiny point.
But what's interesting
about it is
that this happens
most prominently
at the end of the movement.
And then when we look
at the next movement,
it starts with the
dot dot dot ba da.
And so it incorporates
that group of four
and then also the ornament.
So you'll see that in
both of the red boxes.
So that's where the
piano starts and also
where the -- the violin starts.
And you don't have to, you
know, take my word for it.
Listen to it and see if it --
what it sounds like to you.
But to me, it's a
very clear connection,
especially because it comes
one right after the other.
When we get to the
final movement,
we find that the same
basic thing is there,
except we're now
missing one of the bums.
So it's just a -- but it
does keep the ornamentation,
and you can see it
in the red box there.
Plus it has a variant of the --
of the turn figure
comes back prominently,
the one that you
see in the blue.
So this is, you know,
a little bit of a --
a selection of some of the
elements of what Mozart would do
in this kind of a work,
I almost think probably
without thinking about it much.
I think it was probably
a pretty natural thing.
It's kind of a -- a common type
of thing to do at the time.
And so the last thing I'll
say about this piece is
that I'm realizing that
I left out one example
that I thought was
fairly interesting.
So I'll just describe it
for you [Laughs] briefly.
And that is that one
interesting component of writing
for a piano trio is that you
have a lot of registral space
that you can use on the piano
or whatever keyboard
instrument you're using --
less space the earlier you go.
And then you have some
different registers
that you would typically
use with a cello
with the lowest string, the C,
and then going up but, you know,
not keeping -- not
getting too high.
The instrument sounds
different in each --
in its different tessitura.
So a different -- it
just sounds different
in different parts of the range.
And then a violin, of course,
you'll be thinking of that
as a higher instrument.
So what Mozart does -- and a lot
of this is he'll stratify the
parts so that they're occurring
in one particular register
while the other instruments are
occupying those other part --
other parts of the register.
So you might have, you know,
outer voices of the piano,
and then you'll have two
inner voices where the violin
and the cello are actually
in the middle register.
And this is a very
strange thing in terms
of what I hear sonically in the
third movement that you'll hear,
which are these held tones
in that central component --
central register
against the piano --
piano's outer -- outer movement.
So it's kind of a
-- usually he's --
he's more active with those
types of things or the --
in terms of how the
strings are being used.
But at times he just uses
-- uses them as a pad.
And so it's a -- it's
an interesting thing
to keep note of.
I bring that up also because
the next piece that we'll touch
on briefly, the Shostakovich
Second Piano Trio utilizes this
to an extreme degree.
And -- and this is --
Shostakovich is kind of famous
for using octaves and the
piano writing single --
like, each hand is
playing the same thing
in unison but octaves apart.
And it's a very great and
distinct type of sound.
Every type -- every time you
play piano music at the octave,
that's a very clear
sound; two octaves apart,
that's a different sound;
three octaves apart,
that's a different sound.
It might be the same
exact pitches,
but those octave changes that
are made make a big difference
in terms of how we
perceive the music.
You can hear -- you'll
hear this tonight in the --
in the second piano trio.
We call it the second
piano trio,
but the first piano
trio was a student work.
I think it was written in 1923.
And so you don't
hear that as much.
But this piece was
written in 1944.
He had started the first
movement and was working on it
when he learned of the death
of a friend, Ivan Sollertinsky,
who was a musicologist and
also just a dear friend of his
who passed away suddenly
of a heart attack.
He had just recently
been speaking
about Shostakovich's music, in
particular the Eighth Symphony.
And it was a devastating
blow for Shostakovich.
Much is always made of this
component of the piece,
this kind of extra-musical
component as a --
a rationale for why
the piece is as it is.
And it's a difficult thing
to, you know, dismiss because,
of course, these types of
things affect composers just
like they would affect
any other human being
who loses a friend
or a loved one.
But there's oftentimes
a very intense need
to describe what's happening in
the music as being, you know,
this is indicative of
this particular loss
or something like that.
In the case of --
of the Shostakovich,
I think there's a
pretty good reason to --
to at least pay attention
to this, if not focus on it.
And that is partly because
of, you know, the devastation
that he wrote to Sollertinsky's
widow about the loss
that he was experiencing
and also just the general
nature of the music itself.
It's a very serious work.
But at the same time it
has Shostakovich's kind
of trademark irony that
comes through in lots
of different ways but also is --
a lot of his music can be slow
and dark in general [Laughs].
So it's -- it's interesting
to see, to parse what it is
that makes this piece
particularly attractive
to people.
But it tends to be -- it's a
piece that a lot of people know
and a lot of people love and
I think with good reason.
From the very beginning --
and again, I apologize
for not being able
to just show you these
examples, but the --
from the very beginning, what
you'll notice about it is
that there's a cello solo.
And the cello is
playing harmonics.
So basically, the way that this
works is the cello is playing,
they have a note and they're
touching a fourth harmonic --
what would be a fourth
above that pitch
that sounds two octaves
higher than it's written.
And so they're playing
these -- this --
it's this really
high, ghostly sound.
And it's weird to -- I mean,
if you've heard it a lot,
then it's maybe not so strange.
But it's this opening of a
piece, and it's this high,
ghostly sound coming
from the cello,
maybe something you might
expect from the violin.
But it's coming from the cello.
And so it starts there in this
sort of imitative material
where you hear the different
voices come in slowly.
And, again, the --
the piano is --
this is where Shostakovich is
using those different registers
so effectively.
So cello's up super high,
violin's lower, and then the --
the piano's deep in the bass.
So we hear these things come in,
and this is a very
elegiac movement.
I won't say much about the
second movement except to say
that it was said that
Sollertinsky's widow thought
that this was a portrait
of -- of him.
I don't know enough to know
if that is, but it has a sort
of a -- it's kind of a -- a
grotesque waltz in some ways
with lots of -- where
Shostakovich is playing
with kind of tropes of
very clear triadic arrives
but then moving away from it
just a little bit askance to --
to kind of do something
interesting.
And also kind of -- he just
likes to look at things
from a different
angle, I think, than --
than just making it a
straightforward type of waltz.
Like, if you compared
this to, say --
well, it's not really
a fair -- fair thing.
I was going to say to
compare it to say, like,
some of the [inaudible]
of waltzes
around this time,
like Cinderella.
But that's -- it's a
completely different type
of thing going on.
But they both had this
ability to write music
that makes you kind of smile
and kind of wonder at yourself
at the same time
somehow [Laughs].
The third movement is a --
is a passacaglia, basically.
You have these -- this
sequence of chords
that the piano presents and
the -- the strings are --
are performing above it.
The -- the chords repeat
themselves over time.
And so that's an element
that comes back into play
in the final movement.
And the final movement
is the one
that most people know very well.
And that's -- it
has this -- and I --
this is not meant in any way
disrespectful as sort of a --
a Danny Elfman-like opening
theme in terms of it's,
like, a pizzicato thing.
If you hear -- if -- if
you've ever seen the --
the film Nightmare Before
Christmas, you'll hear some
of the same type of writing
that Danny Elfman, of course,
much later is -- is
doing in that score.
But this -- it's this --
this element of the --
of the grotesque comes
very much back into play.
So you've got the pizzicato
strings against the --
the piano and then, of
course, this Jewish component
that was a -- an element
that was recognizably related
to thematic material
that Shostakovich was becoming
interested in and aware of,
especially at the time
when the atrocities
of the Second World War were
starting to come to light.
You know? And so he was becoming
more aware of this, and it began
to permeate some
of his other works
that came later especially.
And so you'll hear --
it's better just to hear it
than to hear me talk about it.
So -- so it's -- what's
amazing about it, though,
I think is that it's
-- it's so --
it's done in such a
way that there's --
there's a certain anguish
to it, I think, that --
that comes through that's also
at the same time you find
yourself driven to kind
of sing along with
it or something.
So it's a -- it's
a wonderful piece.
I -- I know you'll enjoy
it if you haven't heard it.
And if you do know it, it's
going to be great to hear it
by such a wonderful group that
we're -- that we have tonight.
So just in the interest of
time, moving on to the Dvorak.
How many of you know this
piece, this third one?
Not too many people.
It's not his most famous
work, but it's a great one.
It's one of the -- I
mean, we always hate
to say these words
[inaudible] but, you know,
it's a -- it's a solid piece.
Let's put it that way.
And it's a serious piece.
It's -- it's a piece
that dates from 1883.
It was a time when -- when
Dvorak's star was really rising.
And he was -- Brahms had
basically advocated for him
with his publisher Simrock,
got Simrock to commission
the Slavonic Dances.
He had been doing a great
deal of work in Czech,
getting with operas and other
types of things that had more
of a nationalistic bent to them.
And around this time when he was
writing this piece there was a
little bit of pressure
to -- to be --
kind of conform a bit more to
the Brahmsian sort of model
and the -- of the
absolute music,
which is also a very problematic
thing that we won't get into.
But that is to say that this one
doesn't have any overtly-stated
Czech nationalistic
components to it.
People have found them,
and I think that I --
I think that they -- there
are some things that are there
in the -- within the
last movement and also
in the [foreign language]
movement.
But in any case, Dvorak
didn't say here's the --
here it is in the
title, the keyboard would
like to recite overture
and other things.
So there's a couple
of interesting things
that you'll notice
about this work.
First of all, it's very thick.
And I don't mean that
in a negative way.
I just mean there's a lot
going on almost all the time.
And Dvorak, of course,
is well known for use
of melody and things like that.
And even -- even in this opening
melody, which is presented
in octaves with the strings,
it becomes complicated
pretty quickly
but at the same time
not complicated.
And that's -- that is to
say that it's moving a lot
and then sticking where
-- where it ends up there.
So there's this melody there
that just goes from pianissimo,
swells a little bit, comes
back to pianissimo, and then --
which means just really quiet.
And then it kind of
stays on these G's.
And it keeps staying on the G's,
keeping into the sort of a --
you'll just notice that
where the arrows are,
it stays there before
eventually moving on.
One of the things that
you'll notice about --
about the piece is that there
are a lot of different textures,
especially in the piano writing
but also in the string writing.
And this is really important.
I think it shows Dvorak at his
best with the type of variety
of piano writing
that he's doing.
There's been -- I mean, I
guess it's criticism to say
that he's sounding
little bit like Brahms
in certain types of things.
But at the same time Brahms
didn't own all these different
types of figurations.
And there were kind
of tools that --
that Dvorak could use
that were quite different.
And one -- I just
identified a couple of things
that are a little bit unusual.
One of them is the --
so you have in kind of rapid
succession you have these
alternating octaves.
So it goes -- so the left hand
is playing, then the right hand,
left, left, right, left, right.
Oops, sorry.
And then when you get over here,
you have melodic
arpeggiated octaves.
So that's always -- that's
kind of an unusual thing.
So usually when you
see arpeggiated --
those little rolled
chord symbols,
they're usually associated with
a chord or something like that.
So that's -- sometimes
they're for practical reasons
to allow the hand to stretch
and play the entire chord.
And you'll often see that
in left-hand writing.
But sometimes when they are in
this sort of melodic context,
it creates this echo
effect, and it also tends
to emphasize whatever
the dominant part
of the hand is that's playing.
So in this case the thumb
because the thumb is heavier.
And so it has this sort of
echo effect that comes through.
Minor, minor point, but
it's something that --
that is kind of unusual
and it --
it creates a unique
sort of feel here.
And it's not something that he
does throughout the movement.
He changes these
types of figurations
as he feels the music needs it.
So that was -- that's the
example of the melodic roll.
Here's an example of a stretch
where not everybody can do
this big stretch in the bass.
So that's probably more of a
reason why that there's a --
a roll there between
that C [inaudible].
You know, another thing that was
in the air at the time are types
of transformations where
you'd have a melody
that would be presented in a
particular way, and then later
on you'd have a transformation
of that melody
where it would be presented
in a different context,
perhaps with a different
harmony,
perhaps with a different
rhythm, something like that
but still same --
recognizably the same thing.
This was, of course,
a big thing for --
you know, going back to
Schubert, Wanderer fantasy;
Liszt, a lot of his music.
Anyway, you start to see
this also here where you have
that upper [inaudible]
of the blue lines
where they have the melodic
lines are pretty much the same
as you get to the last part
but the harmonization changes.
And so it's the kind of thing
that happens back to back,
happens very quickly, but the
effect is one feels this sort
of recognition that we're in
the same world that we're --
that we've been in but
there's -- something is afoot.
Things are moving
and this is changing.
So Dvorak, in addition
to, you know, doing things
with a motivic development
and other things like that,
it was also doing things
harmonically that make it
at the local level feel like
we're progressing somewhere,
we're moving somewhere.
There are also little things
that -- and these are --
I always feel bad whenever I --
I don't know why I
feel bad about it.
But whenever I present
an example
that involves a minor
second because those --
when you have these
little half-step kind
of warbles going back and forth,
that's kind of a common thing
to hear in music in general.
But they -- they happen here,
and I've boxed them in blue.
And they have a certain genesis,
I think, that comes from earlier
in the -- in the movement.
And you can see those in
the -- in the blue up there.
So it's kind of minimal
and maybe it's not as much
as saying, like, there's
a full-blown melody
that Dvorak is, you know,
representing again later.
But I do think that they are
connected and that they --
one at least hears it that way.
At least I hear it that way.
You don't have to
hear it that way.
I won't be offended if you
don't hear it that way.
Just to say there's
nothing new under the sun,
what we saw in the Mozart
with the types of alternation,
we see that here in Dvorak.
So this is another
common technique
that composers would use.
You know, thinking through 19th
century composers, there's --
I can't think of one that
doesn't use this type of a --
a thing somewhere in
the -- in their work.
So you can just see how
-- I didn't box this one.
But the piano does these --
these chords, and then the
strings do it together,
then the piano again, strings.
So that's sort of a thing.
Again, it just kind of
creates this dialogue
between the instruments.
Dvorak was also -- would
also do certain things
like augmentation of a melody.
And what that means is just
simply, like, if you have a --
an idea and then you stretch it
out to, say, double its length,
that's an augmentation.
If you were to take it
and make it shorter,
that would be diminution.
And so you can see that
the -- the red line there,
the inner voice there
gets spread out longer.
Profile is not always
exactly the same pitches,
but in this example it's not
exactly the same but the effect
that one hears is
pretty much that.
So things are happening
kind of --
the same thing is
happening at different rates
of speed while -- at the same
time while you're listening.
That's kind of a -- been a
favorite thing, you know,
especially since Bach.
We have, just like
I mentioned earlier,
thematic transformation
still comes in where the --
you start to have a different
accompanimental figures
that come in, in the
strings, where we still have
that little noodly
figure that I mentioned
about the half-steps
happening in the --
in the piano part while the --
there's kind of more
of different type
of thing happening above.
And then kind of an interesting
thing, we're just going
to remember that opening
gesture that we started with,
that really quiet gesture that
starts there in the pianissimo,
goes back to pianissimo.
At the end of the movement,
I know this doesn't seem
like such a -- a big
deal thing for him to do,
but the way he does it, I
think, is quite extraordinary.
Basically we get it --
he sets it at piano going
to forte and then pianissimo.
But he inserts it into the
context of this kind of big,
big coda thing that's been
happening but that we --
we have the same music.
And then there's this --
this momentarily pause where
you see all these formatas
at the end of the blue box
and then the piano before
he just ends the piece.
But what happens is that
you have this loud note
in the bottom of the piano,
but after that you hear this --
the same music that you
heard at the beginning
of the piece and
you think, "Oh."
To me, it makes me think, "Oh."
But it's just this very
starting moment where --
and it feels special to
me in some -- in some way.
And then -- and then he
closes it off from there.
So it's kind of -- I think what
-- what attracts me about it is
that he integrates it into a
texture and so it just emerges
out of it once there's silence
to kind of capture that moment.
So it's a really dramatic
and well-considered
gesture, I think.
We won't get into -- it's kind
of an allegretto scherzo thing.
This is -- the second
movement is a dance-like work.
We're not going to, I think --
I don't think I have much to say
about this except that
we have more variance
in the piano writing
that comes through.
You'll start to see more
of those rolled chords
and things like that.
One thing I would point out
is there are other types
of figurations that come
in that are, you know,
not so easy to do all the time.
So you have -- [Laughs] you
have this five against four
with a roll coming after it.
So there's just different
things, but what it ends
up doing is creating a wash
of sound in a fast tempo
that makes -- makes for
kind of exciting music.
Another thing that I
mentioned that you start
to see this especially in --
in kind of classical writing
when they'll start to write
slow movements with 64th notes
or 128th notes or
things like that.
When you start to get --
you start to get too many --
too many notes [Laughs].
Too -- too thick.
The writing was too thick.
So as you get -- you get these
textures that look really simple
on the page, like these, like
sextuplets that are in the blue
at the top of the -- of --
of there, but at a
higher velocity they --
they have this kind of
important sound that is more
than just the notes themselves.
And -- and you'll kind of hear
that against the other kind
of slower alternating octaves
that you hear in the bottom.
And then also the tremolo,
which is a very fast kind
of moving back and forth
between in this case an octave
in the low hand.
So I'm just bringing it up
-- up to say that things --
again, I would rather show
it -- have you hear it.
But the -- the way that the
composer asks a performer
to accomplish certain
things, it's --
it's kind of more than the
-- the sum of its parts.
The -- so you'll -- you'll
just have to hear it.
And then -- the -- be
aware of what the --
what the instrumentalists
have to do
to achieve what the sound is.
And I bring this up because --
and we'll get to it
in the third movement.
I'll explain a bit
more about [inaudible].
In the trio section of
this second movement,
there's some kind of interesting
passage work where --
where Dvorak is definitely,
I think,
channeling Schumann via
Brahms in terms of, like,
displacing beats and what you're
supposed to listen to in a way
that can be unsettling over
time -- not unsettling in, like,
an existential sort
of way [Laughs]
but rather you just sort
of not know exactly what you're
supposed to be listening to,
where you are located in a bar.
And when you're in a --
a situation where there's a
tightly-regimented type of dance
or something like that
that you're hearing,
having that instability
tends to generate content.
Like, it makes you -- makes
you think about things
in a different way and -- and
want to kind of either get --
get back into it or embrace it
and just kind of go with it.
So he does get back on
track eventually after this.
But this kind of writing
is always interesting to me
when it happens,
especially, you know, in --
in Schumann and much
earlier music, too.
So I mentioned earlier
how that --
I think I mentioned
earlier that Mozart
in the second movement
you had kind of a --
a duet between the violin
and -- and the piano.
Here's another example, again,
of just another composer
doing the same type of thing
but this time having the -- the
cello operate as the soloist
with the piano accompaniment.
So, again, providing a
textural, you know, difference.
And then also you'll notice that
when the violin does come in,
it's another type of
imitative gesture.
It's very similar to what the
cello had been playing before.
So what I mentioned
earlier about the -- the --
thinking about the technical
means of production a pianist
in this case has to do versus
how the composer asks for it,
there's this interesting passage
in -- in the third movement.
And I -- it's the one with all
the -- the 32nd notes here.
There's a -- there's a --
a Dvorak biographer whose
name is actually escaping me
at the moment but who had
-- maybe for the best --
but who basically said that
this is, you know, why would --
this is the emptiest passage
that one could possibly have.
Why would you do this?
And it makes me think
that it really depends --
it depends on who's
playing it and depends
on how they're playing it.
And it's a -- it's a problem
that dogs composers in general
because sometimes there's --
you want to get a certain type
of sound and the
way that you choose
to write it might make people --
people perform it in a way
that isn't really what
is musically desirable.
So in this case I would
think a sensitive pianist
like we're going to hear
tonight, I have no doubt
that it's going to be played in
a wonderful way that we're going
to -- not going to even
notice that this is happening.
But you can see how somebody
might just start to --
to really be articulating all
these really fast notes in a way
that just kind of creates not
a wash of sound but a muddle
of sound, especially as
it -- it keeps going.
So it's one of these things
where I applaud the
different types of textures
that Dvorak is going
for because he does it
with a specific goal in mind.
We start to see that as --
as we get a little bit later
in the piece, how he
prepares a different --
a different type of texture,
in this case a sextuplet
16th texture.
You start to see in
the upper blue box,
you'll see these little groups
of -- groups of three 16th.
Those are triplet 16th in
the violin followed by groups
of three in the cello,
three, three, three.
And then six.
And then they start to -- to --
to basically establish this
speed of -- of execution.
The piano takes that
over, we hear it again.
We keep hearing it.
And then we hear that
same speed setting the --
setting basically the background
articulation speed that we hear
in the -- in the piano, those
sextuplets that run just
as an accompanimental figure.
This is something that
is a -- I think --
is a preparation
that Dvorak is doing.
And that, you know, listening
to myself it sounds, you know,
kind of, you know, boring
the way I'm describing it.
But hearing it, when
it gets, then,
to the longer melodic notes
that we hear in the violin
above that, it feels like
an absolute perfect setup.
And so composers will often
think of these ways to kind
of preempt things and
make them feel not
that there couldn't be any
other way but give a sense
of inevitably to them.
That's just one way
that Dvorak does that.
When we get to the
finale, this one --
I won't say too much about
it except that it's --
it's actually a pretty
significant movement.
It's a -- it's a -- not
just a -- a toss-away work.
There's thoughts
that it's related
to a Czech dance, a
[foreign language].
But Dvorak doesn't
say that here.
And we do have --
again, I just wanted
to give you a couple more
quick examples of alternations
and also changing the points
of entry of those alternations.
You'll see in the blue
box that you have --
you have violin first,
followed by cello.
And you can see that just --
you don't have to know the
exact notes but just going
up [inaudible] going up again.
In the bottom part you
then have the same thing
but at a faster rate.
So instead of the waiting
for the violin to finish,
the cello comes in earlier.
So this is another type of thing
that -- and Dvorak cheats a bit
and makes it work a bit better
by not having the
piano play as much.
That's a trick.
Let's see.
Another type of variation
that --
that Dvorak will do and the
last one I think that I'm going
to mention tonight is
that -- so this is a --
a kind of a secondary
theme in this finale.
Right where I have that big
arrow to the tranquillo melody
that you'll hear there,
later on in the --
in the piece you'll hear a
transformation where instead
of having it spread out so
orchestrationally, you have kind
of a not really much happening
in the cello part and the --
and the piano part is
just kind of chords.
It will all go to
the piano part,
and it has a typically kind
of romantic bass --
flowing bass line.
But the -- the cello part is
now being kind of occupied
by the octaves in the -- in
the right-hand and the melodies
in the -- in the middle
part of the right hand.
So this is just another way that
Dvorak would vary his material.
And then it allows it to kind
of move into some other music
that comes on top of it.
So the piano's able to
take over everything,
and then everybody else
moves forward while the --
the piano continues.
So with that, I'd just like
to say thank you for listening
and it was good to at least
get a little introduction
to these pieces.
I hope you enjoy them.
I'm sure you will enjoy
the concert tonight.
So thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
If there are any questions,
I'm happy to try answering.
If you can just wait
for a microphone.
>> Are any of the
library's instruments --
instruments being played tonight
or did they bring their own?
Not tonight?
>> David Plylar: Not tonight.
You'll see most of
them over here.
But yeah, no -- but I mean, most
-- we keep a lot of them here,
not all of them, though.
But unfortunately, not tonight.
One thing I can say about that
is that it's often difficult
for musicians just
to come in and pick
up another string
instrument and be able
to just knock it
out of the park.
So whenever we do
have them perform,
we need to have several
days where the --
the musicians can come
in and get used to them.
It's for their own good and
also for our good and so
that everybody feels
comfortable with them.
And that's why we
don't have them played
as much as we would like to.
>> So these are very
district pieces
and this is a totally
naive question,
but is there any thread of --
for this particular combination
of instruments, any
connections that are known
between the composer -- between
these three particular composers
and choosing these instruments
and learning from each other
or doing something
different or the same?
>> David Plylar: Well, that's
a kind of big question.
You know, one thing
I didn't mention is
that Dvorak's work was
written right after the death
of his mother, with
whom he was very close.
And so it has a certain --
it doesn't strike me as an
elegy piece in the same way
that the Shostakovich
does, or the Rachmaninoff,
or the Tchaikovsky trios, which
were also written as elegies
after the passing of a friend.
Nikolai Rubinstein
for the Tchaikovsky,
and Tchaikovsky for
Rachmaninoff.
But the -- as far as kind of
through-lines between them,
there's, I think, an
awareness that people develop.
It's -- I don't like to think
of it as a progressive one
but rather just an awareness
that later composers tended
to get of -- of what
was happening before.
Trios in particular, I
think, are difficult to --
I think they're difficult
to write.
And part of that is it's just
easier, I think that, like,
a piano quintet is easier to
write for than a piano trio.
And that's because you
have a bit more space
that can be occupied
by the strings and --
and it's not quite as
exposed as the other things.
And so, you know,
the -- the piano --
Mozart was writing
piano quartets,
Schumann was writing
piano quartets.
I guess he wrote probably
the first piano quintet,
major one -- major composer
to write one, at least.
And then Dvorak did, of course.
And the Dvorak trios came --
this is one of two that he wrote
that he would consider
probably a mature work
after he had written a
few earlier, I think.
I can't remember when he
wrote the other ones off hand.
But there's definitely
an awareness
that I think generally I would
probably seek out Mozart,
and Haydn, and these
other things
if I were a composer living at
the end of the 19th century.
But I don't know what
the resources were
like for everybody.
Brahms was, of course, a
historicist in terms of liking
to be aware of -- of
what was going on.
But, of course, he didn't have
access to everything, either.
As far as, like, a
through-line, I --
I do think that there's
just general types of things
that you learn from other
composers, and those come
through in the types of
alternations patterns
that you see, the types
of instrumental registral
decisions.
You see that through a
lot of the repertoire.
And part of that is that there's
only so many things you can do.
But then when you get to
something like the Shostakovich
and you have that opening
that's so unique and unusual,
it starts to -- it stands apart
in some way, not necessarily
for better or worse
but just it --
it helps to give a
little bit of [inaudible].
>> Were these specifically --
were these commissioned one
and were they specific
commission as trios or?
>> David Plylar: They were
definitely all written as trios.
I don't believe they
were commissioned.
I'm not -- I'm not
totally sure off hand,
but I don't -- I
don't believe so.
Somebody might know that answer.
But -- yeah.
But it was something that,
you know, each composer
at this point was
experienced with.
Shostakovich had been --
it had been 21 years or so
since he had written a trio.
But he was certainly experienced
with writing chamber music.
And so there's a --
and also as a pianist.
He -- the other thing with some
of these symphonic composers
like Shostakovich,
they would write --
they would write in such
a way when they're writing
for an orchestra that would
involve different kind
of chamber ensembles
within the orchestra.
So there's also beyond just
their string quartets or things
like that, there's a practical
component that you hear
in the symphonies
of trying things out
and trying different
combinations.
And those kind of --
I think they feed back
into the chamber music
in interesting ways.
I'm not a Shostakovich
scholar, but I just --
that's just my takeaway
just from, you know,
liking his music
and listening to it.
I think we'll go
ahead and stop there.
Thanks again, everybody.
[ Applause ]