Suk Dvorák Smetana Trios pour piano Trio Feininger - AVI8553293 - AVI Music - Classique

Along with the string quartet and the violin sonata, the piano trio is certainly one of the most “classic” chamber music settings. Thus it is no wonder that Czech composers also wrote in that genre. The works by Smetana, Dvorák and Suk featured on this CD are characteristic examples of how the Czech late-19th-century national style was reflected in the area of chamber music. Smetana, the “father of Czech music”, mainly wrote operas and symphonic poems, and only left a small amount of chamber music works to posterity. All three works – two string quartets and a piano trio – were written at times when he experienced a great loss. In autumn of 1855 Smetana’s musically gifted four-year old daughter Bedriška had just passed away, and he wrote the Piano Trio in G Minor. Although the work was harshly rejected when it was premiered in Prague on 3 December 1855, Liszt (whom Smetana fervently admired) was thrilled with it one year afterwards. Similarly to Smetana, Dvorák’s Piano Trio Op. 26 is also in G minor, and the composer had likewise endured a hard test of fate around the time of writing. In Dvorák’s case, his daughter Josepha had died quite recently. We cannot be sure, however, whether the prevailing dark mood is biographically motivated: Dvorák himself seems to have remained quite fond of this work in later years. When it was premiered on 29 June 1879 he played the piano part himself. He then performed it several times in 1892, shortly before leaving for the United States. Josef Suk’s Op. 2 (fairly unknown) had been originally composed in 1889 for a recital held in the home of a Prague physician. His first composition teacher, Karel Stecker, had advised him to revise the four-movement work and reduce it to three. The work only acquired its final form after further revision on the part of Dvorák.