6PM Turn up for the concert!

A Pre-Concert Talk given by Christoph Stadtler
will enrich the concert experience with insights
into the music, background information on the works,
and the lives of the composers.

Free admission

FRIDAY 1 NOV 2024

7PM RAFFLES HOTEL-LE ROYAL

GRAND OPENING

• Dino Decena, violin
• Steve Retallick, violoncello
• Lee Jea Phang, Piano

 

VASIL BARVINSKY

Ukraine (1888 -1963)

Piano Trio a minor

Year of Composition 1910

1. Andante sentimentale. Allegro energic
2. Andante
3. Allegro giocoso (Alla Kolomyika)

Vasily Barvinsky was born in the Ukrainian city of Ternopil (then known as Tarnopol and part of the Austrian-Habsburg Empire). He studied piano, and composition at the Lyiv Conservatory and afterward in Prague with Vizeslav Novak. He pursued a career as a composer and teacher, eventually becoming a professor at the Lyiv Conservatory. His music, occasionally shows the influence of Impressionism, but often relies on Ukrainian folk. The finale is marked Allegro giocoso and subtitled alla kolomyika (usually transliterated as Kolomeyko) A Kolomeyko is a traditional Ukrainian round dance. It starts off slowly but quickly accelerates and grows in excitement. Full of upbeat, forward motion, one can well imagine Ukrainian peasants dancing at a rustic festival.  His Piano Trio was not published during his lifetime.

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JOSEF SUK

Czech Republic (1874-1935)

Elegy Op. 24 

Year of Composition 1902

Josef Suk was a Czech composer and violinist. He studied under Antonín Dvořák, whose daughter he married.

Elegy, Op 23 was written for a memorial event celebrating the life of Julius Zeyer, a writer of novels and epic poems steeped in the history and legends of Bohemia. It is subtitled ‘Under the impression of Zeyer’s Vyšehrad’. This is an epic poem written in 1880 and set in Czech antiquity, Vyšehrad being the ancient fortress on a rock overlooking the river in Prague, which figures prominently in Czech national legends. The Elegy was originally written for the unusual combination of string sextet with harp and harmonium, but was then re-scored for piano trio, what gives full voice to Suk’s rich lyricism.

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ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK

Czech Republic (1841-1904)

Piano Trio, Op. 90 “Dumky”

Year of Composition 1890

1. Lento maestoso — Allegro quasi doppio movimento
2. Poco Adagio — Vivace non troppo
3. Andante — Vivace non troppo
4. Andante moderato — Allegretto scherzando
5. Allegro — Meno mosso
6. Lento maestoso — Vivace

Antonín Dvořák was an unusually prolific and versatile composer. By birth, and for most of his life by place of residence as well, he belonged to a land and a people quite small in size––the Czech nation––but he had an extraordinarily broad and cosmopolitan musical purview. And he made richly diverse contributions to practically every genre of music. Most remarkable of all is his fecundity in the field of chamber music, where his bequest comprises perhaps a larger body of works than that of any other major composer after Beethoven.

His Piano Trio in E minor, Op. 90 ‘Dumky’ In April 1891, after only a few weeks of teaching at the Prague Conservatory, Dvorak received from America a proposition that was to change the course of his life. Jeannette Thurber, who had founded the National Conservatory of Music in New York City, hoped to find in Dvorak a director for her institution who could inspire the ‘New World’ to create for itself its own ‘national’ music. Her choice proved felicitous–Dvorak’s success during his stay in the United States is well-known–but it was far from being an easy decision for the composer, who was reluctant to leave behind his homeland and ongoing projects. After a year’s hesitation, he sailed for New York on September 16, 1892. One must remember that Dvorak had developed a highly personal style in the years leading up to his departure, a style that masterfully integrated his deep Slavic inspiration with the classical models championed at the time by his friend and supporter Johannes Brahms