Seraphim Trio

Friday, 29 June at 8pm

Helen Ayres (violin), Timothy Nankervis ('cello), Anna Goldsworthy (piano)

Programme

MOZART – Piano trio in B flat, K 502

BEETHOVEN – Piano trio in D, op 70, no 1, Die Geister (the Ghosts)

INTERVAL

MENDELSSSOHN – Piano trio in C minor, op 66

About the Artists

Founded in 1994, Seraphim Trio comprises pianist Anna Goldsworthy, violinist Helen Ayres, and 'cellist Timothy Nankervis. The trio is celebrated for its vitality and rapport, and its innovative programming.

Since winning the prize for Leading Piano Trio and the Audience Choice Award in the 2001 Australian National Chamber Music Competition, Seraphim Trio has performed internationally and throughout Australia. It appears regularly for Musica Viva, is frequently broadcast on ABC Classic FM, and is a regular guest at Australian music festivals.

The trio maintains a robust commissioning program, and has worked with a range of Australian composers. In 2008, its recording of Damian Barbeler's Exquisite Blood won 'recommended work' at the International Rostrum of Composers. Seraphim Trio has studied in Germany with Hatto Beyerle, and in Australia with William Hennessy, Eleonora Sivan, Mark Mogilevski, Ronald Farren-Price and Lois Simpson.

Anna Goldsworthy (piano)

Anna Goldsworthy performs regularly in Australia and internationally as piano soloist and chamber musician. Solo appearances include at the Teatro Colon for the Buenos Aires International Music Festival, for the Orchestra of Colours in Athens, at the Melbourne International Arts Festival, and in the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra's Masters Series.

Her debut solo CD, Come With Us, was released by ABC Classics in 2008. In October 2009, her wonderful memoir, Piano Lessons, was released in Australia by publisher Black Inc and in the US by St Martin's (Macmillan). Since 2010, she has been Artistic Director of the Port Fairy Spring Music Festival. Anna is Artist-in-Residence at Janet Clarke Hall at the University of Melbourne, and a founding member of the Seraphim Trio.

Helen Ayres (violin)

Helen is a Doctoral graduate from the University of Melbourne. She served as Acting Head of Strings in 2007 and continues as a violin teacher and examiner at the new Faculty of the VCA and Music.  Helen previously held a full-time position with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and has appeared as guest principal with Orchestra Victoria and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.

As a regular chamber-music recitalist and founding member of the Seraphim Trio, Helen is a regular guest of the Sydney International Piano competition and appears at music festivals throughout Australia.

Timothy Nankervis ('cello)

Currently a member of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and 'cellist of the Seraphim Trio, Tim has won numerous awards for 'cello performance and chamber music. Along with his colleague Helen Ayres, Tim is a regular guest of the Sydney International Piano Competition. In 2000, Tim attended the Australian National Academy of Music and was one of two winners selected to perform as soloist with Orchestra Victoria, playing Tchaikovsky's 'Rococo' Variations.

He has performed widely throughout Australia as a soloist and broadcasts regularly for the ABC and 2MBS-FM. Tim has performed the Beethoven Triple Concerto and the Brahms Double Concerto with orchestras in Sydney and Queensland, and is an active chamber musician performing with the Sydney Soloists as well as Sydney Symphony Chamber Music.

Programme Notes

MOZART – Trio in B flat for keyboard, violin and ‘cello, K 502

Allegro / Larghetto / Allegretto

This wonderful trio was written in Vienna in 1786. Alfred Einstein says that the work "contains everything of concertante display that can be placed in the frame of a piano trio. . . The first movement has a certain relation, not only in key but in thematic material as well, with the Piano Concerto, K. 450, of 1784. . . The Larghetto sounds like the transcription of a deeply felt slow movement from a piano concerto into the domain of chamber music, and the Finale begins like the rondo of a concerto. . . In every measure, one finds the freshness, the nobility of invention, and the inspired mastery that synthesize the contrasted elements of brilliance and intimacy, contrapuntal craftsmanship and galanterie, into a higher unity". To this high acclaim we can add only the words of Roger Hellier, who says that the finale "is of impressive unity and strength and one of Mozart’s greatest achievements in the sonata-rondo form that he had virtually invented and made so much his own".

BEETHOVEN Trio in D for violin, 'cello and piano, op 70, no 1 Die Geister (the Ghosts)

Allegro vivace e con brio / Largo assai ed espressivo / Presto

The two opus 70 piano trios represent a major shift from the three earlier trios of op 1, and the op 11 trio (composed originally for clarinet, 'cello and piano). Gone is the quite strong influence of Haydn and Mozart; we are now in Beethoven's so-called "middle" period. Both trios, written in 1808, were dedicated to the composer's firm friend, the Countess Marie von Erdödy.

The D major trio, op 70, takes its name from the second movement, in which the slow pace and what Günter Schneider calls the "subterranean mutterings of the piano part provide a Poe-like ghastliness of effect". The theme expressed by quickly played octaves which opens the first movement almost immediately gives way to a melody introduced by the cello and then taken up by all three instruments. This melody is based on the material of the opening chords and, indeed, this material permeates the whole movement. The short final movement is marked presto.

This work stands alone among Beethoven's piano trios in having only three movements, rather than the four of all the others, representing, perhaps, a greater compactness but certainly not a diminution of scale.

MENDELSSOHN Trio in C minor for violin, 'cello and piano, op 66

Allegro energico e con fuoco / Andante espressivo / Scherzo: Molto allegro quasi presto / Finale: Allegro appassionato

Felix Mendelssohn's second piano trio in C minor, op 66, his second and last work in this genre, was composed and published in 1845 and dedicated to the violinist and composer, Louis Spohr. The composer was working on his six organ sonatas at the same time and this is reflected to some degree in the trio, especially in the opening.

The first movement is built on the ascending and descending arpeggio with which it opens. The piano introduces the restless main theme, described by Louis Reith as "a flowing quaver figure that rises and falls in each bar, emphasizing the dark harmony of the key of C minor", who continues, "A lyrical second motif of the opening theme features an impassioned melody in E-flat major for the strings, while the pianist rushes up and down the keyboard in semi-quaver runs. The second subject, in E flat, is more soothing in character". You may notice that Mendelssohn gradually reintroduces the opening motive at the end of the development section. In the coda, the piano presents its theme at original speed, while the strings play the same material half as fast, creating huge tension.

A restless passion pervades the second movement, written in E-flat major, although it is calmer, rather than dark and questioning. The piano introduces a rocking, lullaby-like, melody. Soon the violin and 'cello enter and, against a piano background, transform the music into a sentimental "duet without words." A middle section introduces a mood of nostalgia, but then the opening melody returns in the strings with florid piano accompaniment, creating a peak of emotion which then subsides peacefully.

The racing scherzo starts ominously with violin, 'cello, and piano all entering in quick succession and chasing each other through several phrases. The piano takes over with a friendlier scampering melody, easing only slightly in the middle of the movement for a more jovial theme. When the lightning pace resumes, the original racing music alternates with flashes of the jovial theme before the music suddenly evaporates into thin air.

The final movement, again in C minor, starts with a leap of a ninth in the 'cello. A second theme, somewhat more soothing, is soon abandoned to return to the agitated first bars. However, this theme is suddenly broken off, as a solemn chorale in A-flat alludes to Bach's well-known chorale melody, Vor Deinen Thron (Before Your Throne), a song of death whose theme comes from the Geneva Psalter of 1551. In the coda the chorale merges with the principal theme and is elevated to hymn-like splendour.