TRIO AURORA
Vibeke Lundgren Nielsen, piano
Søren Trolle Bagger, clarinet
Svend Rump, bassoon
Trio Aurora was formed in 1982 after a joint recital of Glinka's ”Trio Pathétique”. The three musicians' harmony and the reciprocal rich potential of the instruments formed the breeding ground for a fertile and continued collaboration.
The unconventional instrument composition dates from the time of Mozart, where for the first time the clarinet came into existence. Many composers have since found the combination of piano and the two woodwind instruments, clarinet and bassoon – highly inspiring for another timbre than the traditional string player trio and the piano trio with clarinet and cello. As there are comparatively few clarinet-bassoon-piano ensembles, these works are seldom heard.
Trio Aurora constantly find rather old as well as newly composed works and have through the years acquired a very comprehensive and varied repertoire.
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Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857) was born in a Russian village, Novospasskoye, where he grew up with traditional Russian music culture. He spent his early years in St. Petersburg, where during his time of study he became the friend of the author Alexander Pusjkin, whose works inspired several of Glinka's songs and the opera "Ruslan and Ludmila". 1830-36 Glinka lived in Italy and Germany. Here he met with a.o. Donizetti, Mendelssohn and Berlioz. Inspired by the Western European music, but missing the Russian folk music, he went back to his country to be for the Russian music, what Donizetti was for the Italian music. From 1844 he made several voyages to a.o. Spain and Paris to be inspired, and at the same time he was very successful with his own works.
Glinka wrote a.o. a series of piano works, songs, operas and chamber music.
Although he is considered "the father of Russian music", his music is an expression of a synthesis of Russian folk music and Western European music, and he had a great influence on later Russian composers.
Trio Pathétique is an example of this. Full of themes with sparkling elegance and sublime passion, the 4 movements slide almost imperceptibly from one to the next, creating a perfect whole. A titbit for the three instruments!
Conradin Kreutzer (1780-1849), German composer and conductor. In 1804 he went to Vienna to study music and met here a.o. Joseph Haydn. Kreutzer was over the years a conductor in Stuttgart, Donaueschingen, Vienna and Cologne.
Kreutzer wrote more than 30 operas, but his operas were overshadowed by the contemporary performances of Wagner's early operas. Although Kreutzer was first and foremost an opera composer, he showed a special interest in chamber music all through his career. Almost all his chamber music works include one or several wind instruments.
In Trio op. 43 the music unfolds with rythmical suppleness through simple, catchy themes, and Kreutzer here makes use of the mutual rich potential of the three instruments.
TRIO AURORA's recording is the first CD-release of this work.
William Yeates Hurlstone (1876-1906), British composer and pianist. Hurlstone studied at the Royal College of Music in London, to which he returned as a professor the year before his death. Plagued by asthma he died at the age of 30, before his flourishing talent came to its full bloom.
Hurlstone wrote a.o. a series of chamber music works - chiefly with wooden wind players, a piano concerto, orchestra works and an opera. Many of his works were not released till long after his far too early death.
Thus also Trio in g minor, in which Hurlstone with vigorous theme effect and rich harmonies lets the music radiate gravity and warmth.
The sheets of music for three of the movements which underlie this CD were released in 1998 and were copied from a source material, which was delivered to the Royal College of Music by a relative several years after the composer's death. In that edition the three movements have been placed in reversed order. Later the Scherzo movement turned up and was released separately in 2004. Thereafter the original order of the movements was established, as the 4 movements appear on this CD.
After having recorded the 3 movements, TRIO AURORA got to know the Scherzo movement, which was then added, and the order of the movements was changed.
This CD recording is a world premiere of the original 4-movement version of the g minor trio.
Translation: Tove Rump
