Author name: Administrator

by CMSCVA Artistic Director James Wilson We all want to make our mark on the world! Strangely enough this lofty sounding goal is easily achieved whether by an act of kindness, raising children well, constructing a building or creating something of beauty. Unfortunately, making one’s mark as a composer seems more difficult since time filters out all by the best and perhaps the most infamous of musical works. The works on tonight’s program serve to illustrate four different struggles  – four composers straining at the reins of musical convention, and attempting to make their mark on musical history. Robert Schumann was a brilliant composer, writer and proponent of the ideals of the Romantic era. He struggled with mental illness for much of his life, and often found ways to express his complicated character in artistic ways. He had names for both sides of his bipolar character: Florestan and Eusebious, the extroverted and inverted aspect of his personality. His Piano Trio in D minor represents one of his first tries at writing music for small ensemble. From the start, it’s clear that this is no ordinary piece of chamber music  – it is an invasion of the Big into the world of chamber music.  With yearning string lines interwoven over a thrumming, churning piano part, this piece poses more like a symphony than a trio. The rhythmic drive is constantly propulsive throughout most of the trio even if the music seems expansive.  A galloping scherzo pit unison strings against the piano in imitation, while the contrasting section divides the imitation further into three parts of elegantly scalar material. The only part of this trio that counteracts all of the frenetic, overt action is the third movement, basically a written-out improvisation fore the three instruments.  It’s with this movement that we hear…