The Phoenix Piano Trio offers a wide range of programmes, with repertoire stretching from some of the finest masterworks of the eighteenth century, through to sumptuous Romantic pieces and inspiring contemporary works.
From an extensive list of classical and contemporary repertoire that is suitable for venues and festivals of all shapes and sizes, we offer some sample programmes below. All programmes can be preceded with a short pre-concert talk, with musical excerpts, if required.
Germania to Bohemia
Masterpieces from Central Europe. A combination of Viennese elegance and harmonic verve in Mozart´s E major Trio, vibrant folk rhythms and dreamy melancholy in Dvorak´s last Piano Trio, exploiting the traditional Slavic ´dumka´, and Brahms´ first Trio – a luscious Germanic symphony disguised as chamber music.
Mozart – Piano Trio in E major, K.542
*Dvorak – Piano Trio in E minor, “Dumky”
*Brahms – Piano Trio No.1, Op.8
* = lunchtime concert version
Duration: 75 minutes (lunchtime: 50 minutes)
Spirit
A spell of reflection and fantasy. Two nostalgic English Romantic works – Ireland´s post-war Trio, with a particularly beautiful and intense slow movement to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the composer’s death in 2012, and Dunhill’s C major Trio – and a fascinating pairing of Beethoven´s “Ghost” Trio and a homage by young British composer Philip Venables, based on the famously phantasmal second movement of the “Ghost”.
*Ireland – Piano Trio No.3 in E minor
Dunhill – Piano Trio in C major
Philip Venables – Klaviertrio im Geiste
*Beethoven – Piano Trio No.5, “Ghost”, Op.70/1
* = lunchtime concert version
Duration: 85 minutes (lunchtime: 55 minutes)
Contrasts
An exploration of extremes. An astonishing contrast between solemnity and effervescence in Beethoven’s “Kakadu” Variations, all based on a deceptively trivial theme from Wenzel Müller’s opera “Die Schwestern von Prag”, a vibrant Piano Trio from contemporary Scottish composer James MacMillan ranging from barbarity to serenity (and from ppp to fffff), exploring a myriad of musical ideas in fourteen kaleidoscopic instalments, and a beautiful and frenzied angst underlying Schubert’s last Trio, finished just a few months before his death in 1828.
*Beethoven – “Kakadu” Variations
MacMillan – Fourteen Little Pictures
*Schubert – Piano Trio in B flat
Alternative to Schubert: Brahms – Trio no. 1 in B major
* = lunchtime concert version
Duration: 75 minutes (lunchtime: 50 minutes)
The Classical Trio
A journey through classicism with the three great master composers. From two beautiful examples of classical elegance and its subtle subversion in the very last Piano Trios of Mozart and Haydn, through to Beethoven’s astounding “Archduke” Trio – widely considered the crowning glory of the Piano Trio genre.
Haydn – Piano Trio in E flat major, Hob XV/30
Mozart – Piano Trio in G major, K.564
*Beethoven – Piano Trio in B flat major, “Archduke”, Op.97
Alternative to Mozart: Ernest Chausson – Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 3
* = lunchtime concert version (plus Beethoven’s Piano Trio in E flat major (WoO38)
Duration: 80 minutes (lunchtime: 45 minutes)
Leipzig in the 1840s
Intimate and beautiful works from a unique generation of composers. In the “Schumann Spring” of 1840 Clara and Robert Schumann settled in Leipzig, where Danish composer Neils Gade lived, and where Mendelssohn was already transforming Leipzig into one of the most important music cities in Europe. A rare chance to hear some astonishingly finely crafted compositions from bustling nineteenth-century Germany.
Clara Schumann – Piano Trio in G, Op. 17
*Neils Gade – Novelletten
*Mendelssohn – Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor
* = lunchtime concert version
Duration: 75 minutes (lunchtime: 45 minutes)
Beyond Beethoven
An exploration of Beethoven’s legend and legacy. Two of the composer’s most enduringly prized works – the “Ghost” and “Archduke” trios – are heard alongside two modern responses from contemporary British composers.
Venables - Klaviertrio im Geiste
Beethoven – Piano Trio No.5, “Ghost”, Op.70/1
Cheryl Frances Hoad – The Forgiveness Machine
Beethoven – Piano Trio in B flat major, “Archduke”, Op.97
Alternative to Venables and Beethoven “Ghost”: Beethoven – Trio in E-flat, Op.1/1
Duration: 85 minutes
After the Age of Enlightenment
Three unique trios from the century following the Age of Enlightenment by an elderly Haydn, a youthful Saint-Saens and a mature Brahms. By turns elegant, sensuous, dramatic and beautiful, these works explore one hundred years of masterful composing.
*Haydn - Trio in E flat, Hob. XV:30
Saint-Saëns – Trio No. 1 in F, Op.18
*Brahms – Trio No. 2 in C major, Op.87
* = lunchtime concert version
Duration: 80 minutes (lunchtime: 50 minutes)