D Un Matin De Printemps (1918)

1 PROGRAM NOTES Delphi Trio March 15 2021 LILI BOULANGER (1893-1918) D un Soir Triste (1918) D un Matin de Printemps (1918) Tragically short-lived Lili Boulanger was the younger sister of famed pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. Lili got off to a bad start in life, suffering from chronic illness that compromised her health, especially after 1895, when she barely survived bronchial pneumonia. Almost constantly ill thereafter, she died from Crohn’s Disease in 1918. Nevertheless, she worked hard to develop her musical skills, and by age 14 had already decided to focus on composition. Her choral/vocal work Faust et Hélène earned her the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1913, which brought immediate fame both in Paris and abroad. Lili was highly regarded by Claude Debussy, not generally a cordial supporter of fellow composers; he noted that her music “undulates with grace.” At only three years of age she began accompanying her older and already famous sister Nadia to classes at the Paris Conservatory. Despite Lili’s compromised health she eagerly studied piano, violin, cello and harp. In 1918, she composed two lovely chamber works often heard in orchestral guise, D'un Soir Triste (Of a sad Evening) and D'un Matin de Printemps (Of a Spring Morning). These were the last 2 pieces she could even copy by herself, though even here Nadia had to fill in the dynamic and expressive marks. As befits the title D’un Soir Triste lives in a less sanguine realm but still maintains delicacy and touching beauty. Like a heaven-sent gift, Lili’s short life promised much but left much unrealized. A great loss. CLARA SCHUMANN (1819-1896) Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 17 (1845) Clara Schumann was a prodigiously gifted musician, considered by many contemporaries as the pianistic equal of Franz Liszt. She was also, if we can judge by the small canon of musical works she produced, an imaginative composer, one whose efforts in that arena were strongly supported by her husband Robert. She was a child prodigy who performed a Mozart piano concerto at age 8, gave her first complete recital at age 11 and her first extended concert tour a year later. Ironically, she didn’t speak until she was 4 years old. Her father, the eminent teacher (of Robert Schumann, among others) Friedrich Wieck, began teaching her to play by ear when she was 5 to convince himself that she was not deaf. At age 14 she composed her Piano Concerto in A minor (which pops up occasionally in concert and on recordings), which she performed at 16 with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Mendelssohn. Clara began composing when she was 9 years old. Despite having to raise eight children after Robert’s early death in 1856, she had a full career as a concert pianist and managed 3 to produce 66 compositions (all of them by 1853). In 1843, shortly after their marriage, Robert wrote “Clara has written a number of small pieces that show musicianship and a tenderness of invention such as she has never before attained. But children and a husband who is always living in the realms of the imagination do not go well with composition. She cannot work at it regularly, and I am often disturbed to think how many tender ideas are lost because she cannot work them out.” In 1845, while pregnant with their fourth child and therefore unable to tour, Clara immersed herself in the study of music by Bach and Cherubini, which inspired her to write her Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano in G minor. The manuscript reveals a difficult gestation period for the new work that cannot be divined from this fluent and balanced composition. The influence of her husband is especially strong in the first movement, Allegro (as it is in her above-mentioned Piano Concerto), though one can argue that the influence was mutual. Robert paid close attention, as Brahms later did, to Clara’s suggestions regarding their music. The main theme of the Allegro ingratiates itself through its natural lyricism and is effectively balanced by a chordal and syncopated second motive. Her study of Bach shows in her penchant for counterpoint in the development section. The delectable Scherzo that follows has a distinctly rustic dance feel through Clara’s use of the ‘Scotch snap,” a rhythmic figure that employs a dotted rhythm (i.e., a long 4 note followed by a clipped short note). Though the Trio also has its moments of syncopation, it is comparatively relaxed and is imbued with a faint longing quality. In the major mode, the following Andante is fairly tame on the whole, though enlivened by a feverish middle section in the minor. Clara may have saved the best for last. The G-Major finale posits a theme redolent of the opening of the Andante, but she really ramps up the compositional savvy in the rich polyphony of the development section. The movement ends with a finely wrought coda that blends energy with confident control. (c) Steven Lowe .

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