Berlin Stories: Mendelssohn, Juon, Skalkottas

Album review

Berlin Stories is the first in a series to come from Trio Gaspard, all to be devoted to specific musical capitals. It is not clear how well a musical essence of the city is conveyed here. Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor, Op. 66, was composed in Frankfurt, although the composer had been associated with Berlin earlier in his career. The Litaniae, Op. 70, of composer Paul Juon indeed had its premiere in Berlin but, the composer said, referred to a scene he witnessed in a church in Munich, while the Acht Variationen über ein griechisches Volksthema ("Eight Variations on a Greek Folk Theme") of Nikos Skalkottas, though first performed in Berlin, is very much part of the Viennese cultural universe of Skalkottas' teacher, Arnold Schoenberg. However, it doesn't matter too much how "Berlin" the pieces are; the music and the music-making are solid throughout. Mendelssohn's C minor trio is one of the most serious and most Beethovenian things he ever wrote, and the Trio Gaspard gives it a full measure of tumult. The Juon Litaniae, which the composer termed a "tone poem," is a post-Romantic piece with a unique evolving structure and an intense near-mysticism. The Skalkottas piece is also unique, mixing serial and tonal elements. This release has elements that will appeal to a great variety of chamber music lovers.
© James Manheim /TiVo