Brahms & Krenek, Piano Trios by Feininger Trio

Ernst Křenek, Johannes Brahms

Feininger Trio

Brahms & Krenek, Piano Trios

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: CAvi
UPC: 4260085535255
Catnr: AVI 8553525
Release date: 13 October 2023
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Label
CAvi

UPC
4260085535255

Catalogue number
AVI 8553525

Release date
13 October 2023

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

Kreneks relation to Brahms
Volker Michael in conversation with David Riniker

Brahms, Piano Trio No. 1 B Major, Op. 8(1889)
….By combining Brahms’s piano trios with works in the same genre by his younger Viennese successors, we aim to open up new perspectives on Brahms’s output. The two works featured on the current release, Brahms’s Trio Op. 8 and Ernst Krenek’s Trio-Fantasia Op. 63, are essentially different in one particular way. In Brahms, the two string instruments often play together, either in octaves or in sixths, and the two are particularly closely intertwined in the B Major Trio (Op. 8). Krenek, however, handles the violin and the cello quite differenty: they respond to one another as in a question-and-answer game, or they take up their musical partner’s material and carry it a step further.

Ernst Krenek, Trio Fantasy Op. 63
…..The instrumental parts are not as closely interwoven in this piece as in Brahms’s trio. But Krenek’s Op. 63 seems to depict an entire life story. It starts very softly; then, a series of events take place, just as in real life; toward the end, the music seems to vanish into the heavens. We come, and we go. That expressive “life curve” is profoundly moving and provides unity. The work thus follows a form akin to an arc: at the end, we return to where we started, but not before having experienced utter transformation in the course of the piece.

Kreneks Beziehung zu Brahms

Volker Michael unterhält sich mit David Riniker

Brahms, Klaviertrio Nr. 1 H.-Dur (1889)
…….Die Kombination mit den Trios der jüngeren Wiener Brahms-Nachfolger schafft eine wichtige Erweiterung, denn sie eröffnet neue Perspektiven auf Brahms’ eigenes Schaffen. Die beiden Werke dieser Einspielung, Brahms’ Trio op. 8 und Ernst Kreneks Trio-Fantasie op. 63, unterscheiden sich in einem wesentlichen Punkt: Bei Brahms spielen die beiden Streicher oft zusammen, sei es in Oktaven, sei es in Sexten. Speziell im Trio in H-Dur (op. 8) sind beide Instrumente eng miteinander verwoben. Krenek behandelt Geige und Cello anders. Sie ergänzen einander wie in einem Frage-und-Antwort- Spiel oder spinnen weiter, was das jeweils andere Instrument begonnen hat.

Ernst Krenek, Trio-Fantasie op. 63
….Die Instrumente sind in diesem Stück nicht so miteinander verwoben wie im Trio von Johannes Brahms. Doch dieses op. 63 ähnelt einer Lebensgeschichte. Es beginnt sehr leise. Dann geschehen verschiedenste Sachen wie in jedem Leben, und es verliert sich wieder in den hohen Klängen: Man kommt und man geht. Das schafft eine Einheit und wirkt beeindruckend expressiv. Das Werk hat eine Bogenform: wir kommen am Ende dorthin zurück, wo wie gewesen waren. Im Verlauf des Stücks vollzieht sich jedoch eine Verwandlung…..

Artist(s)

Feininger Trio

In 2005, Adrian Oetiker (pianist) and the Berliner Philharmoniker Christoph Streuli (violinist) and David Riniker (violoncellist) founded the Feininger Trio. The patron saint of The Trio, Lyonel Feininger is also known as a graphic artist designer, painter and the co-founder of The Bauhaus. Feininger‘s Berlin studio was not far from the rehearsal site of the ensemble in the district of Berlin-Zehlendorf.
The close proximity allowed him to feel closely connected as a personality as well as to his work.
In addition to the stylistic variety, the three musicians embody warmth, expressiveness and sophistication.
They also explore the border areas as part of the basis of their musical interpretations.
From the critics, the Trio is repeatedly highlighted for their wide range of nuances and timbres, but also „for their expressive and gripping game as well as intoxicating presentation“ (Fono Forum).
In addition to various concert podiums in Berlin, Hamburg, Salzburg, Munich and also smaller concert cycles, The Feiningers regularly play at the festivals in Baden Baden and Zurich and played their debut at the „Prague Printemps“ in 2019.
The Feininger Trio has been setting programmatic priorities for several years. Music from Bohemia in the center of their performances are released on CAvi-music in November 2013. In 2016/2017, the Feiningers turned to France with the Trios of Debussy and Ravel (May 2017, also on CAvi-music).
In co-production with Deutschlandfunk Kultur the Feiningers recorded the cycle of Brahms Trios, combined with the trios by Zemlinksy, Korngold and Krenek.
A special treat in German-speaking countries is the collaboration between the three musicians and the actress Katharina Thalbach.

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Composer(s)

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria. His reputation and status as a composer is such that he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs" of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow.
Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, and voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works. He worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim (the three were close friends). Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. Brahms, an uncompromising perfectionist, destroyed some of his works and left others unpublished.
Brahms has been considered, by his contemporaries and by later writers, as both a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters. While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar. The diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahms's works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers. Within his meticulous structures is embedded, however, a highly romantic nature.

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