Trio à cordes

Trio à cordes
String trio

Year of composition

1936

Duration

16'

Scored for

violin, viola and cello
I. Grave - II. Très vif et coulant - III. Très lent

Publication information

Universal Edition (UE13959)

Commentary

Trio à cordes
I should like to say a few words about this Trio à cordes that you have just heard. I don’t much care for prepared listening, which is why I wanted you to hear the trio first without any preparation. It will be performed again later for those who would like to hear it once more.
 I wrote this Trio in 1936 and I have a particular affection for it, similar to the love felt for an enfant terrible. With this Trio I finalised a special way of musical writing, using technical material which was new to me. And I wrote it more rigorously than any of my other compositions with the same technical material. This pleased my craftsman’s taste for a job well done and another sort of taste similar to a fear of failure, for a particular problem which needs to be solved stylishly.
 Of course, none of this has anything to do with the music. I am still fond of it because of its brevity and, I should say, its lack of fantasy. Apart from a little melody in the second movement, there is nothing in it which has not come from two initial figures: the beginning of the first and of the third movement; the second is based on an element from the first. It is more of a French overture than a trio: slow-fast-slow, as the three parts are so closely linked that not one can stand on its own.
 As far as the form goes, it is extremely simple and easy to read, almost classical, I should say, which puts this Trio at quite a distance from my most recent compositions, especially the ballads for saxophone, for flute and for trombone.
 I am fond of this Trio like an enfant terrible because it has nothing pleasing: it is difficult to hear, its mood is austere, the sonority is quite stark, and so it gives pleasure to very few. And I am pleased to have it performed here like this, this evening, for a few people, I should say friends, rather than in a concert hall.
[…]

Text spoken by Frank Martin during the early forties, and published in A propos de… commentaires de Frank Martin sur ses œuvres (Neuchâtel, 1984) | English translation by Rachel Ann Morgan

Premiere

World première: Brussels, 2 May 1936. Trio Röntgen: Joachim Röntgen, Oskar Kromer and Antonio Tusa

Recordings (selective list)

  • Die Kammermusiker Zürich
    Jecklin-Disco JD 646-2 ℗ + © 1990 (FMS009)

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