Program Notes - Concert on April 222

Bernstein Piano Trio
Leonard Bernstein composed his Piano Trio during his sophomore year at Harvard.  He had enrolled at the university at his father’s insistence at age 17.  Samuel Bernstein saw his son not as a child prodigy on his way to a promising musical career, but rather as the future manager of the “Samuel Bernstein Hair Company,” a company supplying the needs of beauty salons throughout New England.  While at Harvard, Bernstein befriended a fellow pianist, Mildred Speigel, whom he had met initially in 1932 as a high school student.  She founded a trio with two friends and gave frequent local concerts.  Bernstein composed the piano trio for his friends, and as a result, the piece is imbued with the “easygoing youthfulness” of college life.

Foote Piano Trio No. 2 in Bb Major
Arthur Foote is recognized as the first American composer of concert music to be trained entirely in the United States.  Like Bernstein he was a native of the Boston area, and graduated from Harvard in 1874.  He established himself as a piano teacher, and later returned to Harvard, receiving the first Master of Arts degree in Music awarded by an American university.  There is a 25 year gap between Foote’s first and second piano trios.  While the first trio adheres to romantic models set by Brahms and Wagner, the second trio—although still romantic in nature—explores a new dimension in Foote’s composition.  The rhythmic structure is no longer confined to a defined idiom, and  there is a new subtlety in the harmonic language which is missing in his earlier works.  Foote scholar Nicholas Tawa finds various melodies in the first movement to have a Native American tone—achieved by the open harmonies.

Brahms Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor
Brahms spent the summer of 1886 composing at the Swiss resort of Hoffstetten.  The third piano trio exemplifies Brahms mastery of thematic transformation.  Almost the entire trio can be derived from the three note figure heard in the left hand of the piano at the very opening.  The second movement theme is based on the same motive, although in a drastically different character.  The slow third movement is again based on the three rising notes, and the finale opens with an altered three note motive, this time with a  jump.  Brahms’ is able to compose an entire work around only three notes.  Some scholars believe this is a statement of musical truth from the composer, that all music is inherently organic, and grows from the smallest seed into the largest symphony.

About The American Piano Trio

The American Piano Trio, faculty ensemble-in-residence at Ball State University, is comprised of Robert Palmer, piano, Anna Vayman, violin, and Peter Opie, cello.  Originally founded in 1983, the Trio has performed in the United States, Canada, Korea, and Thailand.  Recent and upcoming performances include the Interlochen Center for the Arts, the Fleisher Art Memorial in Philadelphia, Villanova University, DePauw University, Anderson University, Taylor University, Indiana Wesleyan University, and a multi-city tour of Korea.  In October 2008 the American Piano Trio has been invited to perform at the prestigious 8th Annual International Conservatoire Week Festival at the Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatoire in St. Petersburg.  In addition, the Trio will present recitals and master classes at other leading conservatoires in Russia. In 2009 the Trio will make a recording of works by American composers that will be issued on the Beneficence label.