The re-edition of all previous Abegg Trio recordings on TACET is completed by three CDs with less known works. The last one contains music of the 20th century.
The recording was done in 1992 - with the same team, under the same circumstances and with the same care and love for the detail as all other recordings of this big piano trio edition.
Erdmann has been described as the "quiet" German composer. This is true in the sense that outward dynamism has never been an essential part of his nature, that it has never turned into hectic and noisy industriousness as in the case of other, less "quite" colleagues. The piano trio was written in February 1990 while the composer was staying in the Brahms house in Baden-Baden. The three movement work begins with a short slow introduction on the strings, which are joined by the piano immediately before the fast main section starts. In the generously phrased, thee-part Allegro, which finished with a relaxed coda, rhythmic elements play an important part. The piano writing remains transparent throughout and leaves the strings room for melodic and chordal development. The work is written in a freely tonal, thematically connected style.
Rihm's "Strange Scene II" are experiments for piano trio, but also essays on the piano trio as such.
"The piano trio "Brahms - Bildnis", dating from 1976, is, like the piano quartet, in one movement, but despite its trio character it is more "classical" than the latter-named work. It is possible that I am the only one to associate the piece with "Brahms", with the concealed chaos of his way of life, the distress so deeply felt and expressed..." Wilhelm Killmayer
There is no doubt that the two stylistic impulses of late German romanticism and Italian sensuousness have had an effect on Acker's musicality. Acker likes working with a selection of keys in modal style, which allows him to create effects by means of transposition and modulation which seemed up till now to have been reserved for tonality. His tonal language is balanced, it dispenses with effects where they do not serve the cause of expression. It uncompromisingly exploits the devices of a free range of sound, but it does not lose itself in senselessness. The trio Stigmen is a work of the composer's youth. The music, composed in 1968, was re-written three years later to produce the present version and in the same year the composition was awarded the first prize in the Marl composition contest. The work is divided into movements, most of which are short, tender, lyrical pieces.
The Kammersonate was composed in 1947 while Henze was still studying music in Heidelberg. It was the only chamber music written in a year which saw the composition of some of the composer's most acclaimed early works and gives clear evidence of his developing instrumental masters already recognized in the First Symphony composed the previous year. Two richly polyphonic slow movements are flanked by a short introduction - light, detached and rhythmic, a short allegretto and a concluding 'Epilogo', a parting gesture recurring many times in the composer's music.
Recorded in Festeburgkirche Frankfurt, June 1992
Musicians:
Abegg Trio:
Ulrich Beetz, violin
Birgit Erichson, violoncello
Gerrit Zitterbart, piano
Selections:
Dietrich Erdmann
Trio (1990)
1. Adagio - Allegro
2. Poco Adagio, con espressione
3. Allegro molto
Wolfgang Rihm
Fremde Szene II (Strange Scene II) (1982/83)
4. Rasch
Wilhelm Killmayer
Brahms-Bildnis (Portrait of Brahms) (1976)
5. Lento
Dieter Acker
Stigmen (1968/71)
6. Pesante e austero
7. Intimo e desideroso, poco rubato
8. Tenero
9. Pochissimo inquieto
10. Drammatico e con ostinatezza
Hans Werner Henze
Kammersonate (1948)
11. Allegro assai
12. Dolce, con tenerezza
13. Lento
14. Allegretto
15. Epilogo
Total playing time 64:46
