Another plug for the recital series put on by the Bath Recital Artists’ Trust. These events with young professional performers go some way to filling in the chamber music/song recital withdrawal symptoms here between Festivals.
My husband went to the most recent recital, featuring that slightly unusual medium, the string trio, in this case the Carnevale String Trio. As at the last one he’d been to, there was a substitute violist. The predominant player was the rather animated Polish violinist, who certainly contrasted with the deadpan Swiss cellist. The programme began with an arrangement some of the Goldberg Variations. The next two pieces had a slightly folky feel: Dohnanyi’s Serenade and a trio by Gideon Klein, both showing the influence of Czech composers such as Janáček. The concert ended with Beethoven’s Op. 9 no. 3 trio.
There are plenty of string trios, but apart from Beethoven no major composer seems to have written more than two. They appear to have gone out of fashion after Beethoven and Schubert, then enjoyed some popularity with composers in the mid-twentieth century and continue to be written today.