Serenade in E Major, Op. 10 / String Trio in C Major

NATURAL BALANCE

LONG PLAYING RECORDS WL 5316

JEAN POUGNET Jean Pougnet was born in 1907. ERNST VON DOHNANYI He started to study the violin at age of 5, was taught by his sister for two years, then jor by Prof. Rowsby Woof, at age 11 entered Royal Academy of Music, winning three scholar- Serenade in © Major, Op. 10 ships in succession, until 1925. His first London recital age 15, first Promenade Concert, the next year subsequent experience with chamber music, solo playing, both for Music Societies, Public concerts and radio. At outbreak of war, undertook some special work for BBC until 1942, then joined LENNOX BERKELEY London Philharmonic Orchestra as concertmaster, in 1945 left the orchestra and has since concentrated on solo work. String Trio : FREDERICK CRAIG RIDDLE “Born in 1912 im Liverpool. Kent Scholar at Royal College of Music 1928-1933. Winner of Tagore Gold Medal 1933. Professor of viola at Royal College of Music. JEAN FRANCAIX Principal viola of the London Symphony Orchestra 1935-1938 and of London Philhar- monic Orchestra 1939-1952. String Trio in C Major ANTHONY PINI String C Trio, Ma Born in Buenos Aires. Came to England in 1912. ANTHONY PINI Has devoted much time to Chamber Music, co-founder of Philharmonia Quartet with Jean JEAN POUGNET FREDERICK RIDDLE Pougnet, Frederick Riddle and Henry Holst. Has played in most capitals of Europe as Violin Viola Cello soloist and toured America four times also with Sir Thomas Beecham and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He is Professor of cello Guildhall School of Music and Birming- The three string trios that comprise this recorded recital are each of them worthwhile ham College. examples of the diverse esthetics to which the twentieth century owes its musical vitality.

Chronologically the earliest is the Serenade that is listed as Opus 10 in the long cata- logue of Ernst von Dohninyi. The piece was published in 1904, when the composer was twenty-six and, like Brahms before him, a barnstorming pianist. Only when he reached thirty did Dohnanyi gravitate to the academic life with which he was to be so auspiciously identified These felicities are notably presenti in the Trio herewith, dedicated to the Pasquiers, during his happily long career. which dates from 1933. The first movement, Allegretto vivo, is in effect a sonatina. The strings ate muted. The key is C with occasional incursions in the relative minor, The good- Brahms was Dohnanyi’s model in creative matters, too, despite Donald Francis Tovey’s natured first theme is heard in the violin. The viola answers. The second theme proper is rejoinder that mastery in the sonata forms and style “is nowadays attributed automatically to merely a series of sustained notes in the cello. the influence of Brahms.’ Tovey is quite correct, however, in adding that ‘the influence of Brahms is neither in form nor in style the dominating feature in Dohnanyi’s work,” although Mutes are off for the Scherzo. The violin throws out the melody, Vivo, in G. The move- FRANCAIX Trio he is brave indeed when he insists that the latter composer, “even in his early works, shuns ment is a romp from start to finish, with strong accents and a feeling of polyphony pervading. boredom absolutely,’ producing “art in which the form arises organically from the matter.” The Andante is in rondo form, with a lovely theme in A minor that is sung by the None of these equivocations can obviate the Brahmsian ways of the Opus 10, unless you muted violin as if it were a Lied. are prepared to go along with Tovey’s affectionate final rationalization that “‘such influences operate with complete disregard for common notions as to the nature and obligations of orig- _, For: the bustling Finale, the mutes are again removed. The tonality is C, with the violin. inality.’ As if to support this contention Tovey begins his analytic discussion of the Serenade Vivo, announcing the theme. The movemeni is nothing if not a can-can in spirit, ending String by comparing it with Dvordk’s Terzetto tor two violins and viola, in which the important very softly with a slight pzzzicato tweak of the listener’s nose. movement is the Finale: “But Dohnanyi’s wit and technique are too resourceful to keep hin: waiting for inspiration until a fourth movement” Lennox Berkeley is one of Britain's most respected contemporaries. Oddly enough he did not take up music at all until he was twenty-three, when he departed Oxford to study There are, in fact, five movements in the Opus 10. The first'is a buoyant Marcza in C, privately with Nadia Boulanger. For the next seven years he lived in Paris, soaking up the is a marked Allegro, that is full of characteristic march rhythms. In the central section there French tradition as best an expatriate can (da /a Virgil Thomson) and consciously emulating kind of Trio in which the cello offers a new melody to viola accompaniment, with the violin its latter-day exponents (especially Poulenc). subsequently assuming it before the original theme comes back in: “three meditative murmurs of its first bar followed by a figure like a sneeze.” The fruits of this adventure, with all of their lush niaths and elevenths, are no longer is designated Adagio non available for our delectation because Berkeley withdrew them when he removed to _ his The Romanza, with tonalities of F and C_ superimposed, indigenous habitat. What remained of his indoctrination across the Channel were a precision and cello present the wist: troppo, quasi Andante. After a one-measure introduction the violin and an elegance, and these considerable assets were to give his later efforts an innate fastidi- passionate fully folk-like melody. Then, Poco piu animato, the violin introduces a_ restless, ousness that we do not ordinarily associate with British music. ‘For it would hardly be theme in A flat with the cello brooding on the sidelines. extravagant to say,” as Wilfrid Mellers has observed in The Listener, “that Berkeley's growth to maturity has been a growth in lyrical conviction; and that as lyricism has become the In its overall perspective the Scherzo is a long fughetta, Vivace, in D minor, occasionally vacillating to the major. The violin leads, guarding the witty theme from the punctuating essence of his music, so he has translated his French idiom into English.” _cross-thythms of the cello. The coda is an inversion of the subject. In an excellent book entitled Music and Society, published in America by Roy, the same Next is a Tema con variaziont. The rustic theme is announced in G by the violin, authority finds the String Trio of 1944 redolent of Roussel. As evidence of Berkeley’s stylistic ,Op.10 BERKELEY Andante con moto. There ate five variations, handled in turn by the viola, the violin, again evolution he esteems this work, in comparison with those of years past, “much more power- the violin with elaborate embellishment, again the violin with the theme telescoped and thus fully organized, and melodically both longer-breathed and more sinewy. The objectivity of rhythmically metamorphosed, and finally the vioia. The tonality is essentially G all the way. Stravinsky is intensified by elements of the rhetoric of late Mahler; significantly as it becomes more powerful the music grows less eclectic in effect. It makes none of the implicit con- jor With the Finale, a rondo marked Allegro vivace, we ate back in D minor, and thence to cessions to the English tradition that the best work of Britten, Tippett and Rubbra does, in C. The Haydnesque double theme is disclosed in the viola and violin simultaneously, and which Tudor polyphony, Purcellian declamation or medievai lyricism are seldom completely thereafter it is heard always in double counterpoint. There is an allusion to the very opening lost sight of. But it is making itself inseparably a part of that tradition, as the authentic of the Marcia and also to its Trio before the end comes, surprisingly, in a slow fade-out thai expression of an English sensibility.” erupts fortissimo at the last possible moment. The String Trio is in three movements. The tonality of the opening Moderato hovers In 1921, when Saint-Saéns died, the nine-year-old Jean Francaix was deeply moved. He mostly about E, somewhat less about C and F. After a two-measure introduction the Schu- vouches for the report that he told his father, who was director of the Conservatoire at Le bertian first subject is sung by the violin. The second, heard in the same instrument, is Mans: “Don’t be worried; I will take his place.’ Francaix pére was pleased by this evidence vaguely reminiscent of the Waltz from Tchaikovsky's Pathétizque. All aspects of the thematic of genteel propensities in his talented offspring. In the same year, indeed, the boy composed material are developed fully, with new ideas germinating organically out of the old. a properly academic piano suite that was published by the house of Senart. For several more years there would be no suspecting that Jean was destined to turn from his early path. Then __ Three-part song form is the substance of the Adagio, which tends to F. Again the he departed the provinces for Paris, and new ideas. From that time forward his musical speech violin submits the melody after a measure of introduction. There is a middle section of was to take on a more and more rebellious tone. exceptional poignance in which both the new theme and its harmonies are in vivid contrast. C Serenade, Ma The ubiquitous David Ewen, in a study published by Prentice-Hall, sums up the com- We discern the influence of Roger Sessions in the driving Finale. In form it is a rondo poser succinctly thus: “In his music, Frangaix is as Gallic as his name. Lightness of touch, of sonata dimensions, with everything deriving inexorably from the first few notes of a scale effervescence of spirit, irony that sometimes approaches malice, briskness of movement—the passage assigned at the outset, Allegro, to the cello. The development is richly textured vein so many French composers adopt with such skill—are found in all of Francaix’s major contrapuntally, with a brief allusion midway to the opening theme of the first movement. works. He has been greatly influenced by Stravinsky, to a point where slender form, ccn- ciseness, brevity, simplicity, and clarity of writing become almost a fetish. But there is JAMES LYONS enough acidity in the harmony and robustness in the rhythm to give his music contemporary spice. A Recorded in the Famous Konzerthaus, Vienna, Austria

ERNST VON DOHNANYI

SERENADE IN C MAJOR, OP. 10 Jean Pougnet - Violin Frederick Riddle - Viola Anthony Pini - Cello

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