The clarinet is one of the late developers among the instruments in common use today: it came into frequent use only from the eighteenth century, at first mainly in the orchestra. Clarinet trios therefore long remained an exception in composers’ output, despite the famous examples by Mozart, Schumann and Brahms. The combination of clarinet, piano and a string instrument became more widespread only in the twentieth century, of which this CD offers a broad cross-section. All four works share their origin in the classical-romantic tradition, which shows itself above all in a tendency towards intensive motivic and thematic development.
The Adagio is the second movement of Alban Berg’s Chamber Concerto, which the composer himself arranged for violin, clarinet and piano. It is not yet subject to the rules of twelve-note technique, yet Schoenberg’s influence is clear in the richly connected organisation of the pitch material. The work begins with three themes that flow into one another, the last of them — a singing melody on the clarinet — being the most memorable; it is spun on by the three instruments, varied melodically and rhythmically, at times in several voices at once. At the centre a C sharp is struck in the low register of the piano: at this point, framed by rich figuration, lies the movement’s axis of symmetry, from where it is repeated in reverse — not easy to follow without the score, since every event appears in a new guise.
Ernst Krenek, born in Vienna in 1900 and emigrated to the United States in 1938, premièred his Trio in 1946 with himself at the piano. Schoenberg’s twelve-note technique, which Krenek at first rejected but mostly used from his opera Karl V of 1933 onwards, underlies the work in free application: particular notes are often gathered into groups characteristic in motif and instrumentation, while the basic row is handled flexibly. The first movement begins with a clarinet melody soon taken over by the piano; the piece develops in the manner of a development section until, after a brief piano cadenza, the reprise begins with the theme in the violin. The second, more contrast-filled movement is likewise articulated by a striking opening theme; towards the end the melody from the beginning of the trio returns like a memory, but the movement closes with its energetic main theme.
Gottfried von Einem, born in Bern in 1918, spent his childhood and youth in Schleswig-Holstein. In 1937 he went to Berlin, originally to study with Paul Hindemith, who by then had already resigned his chair at the Hochschule für Musik under National Socialist repression. His Verdehr Trio Op. 97, with its four movements corresponding to the extended sonata cycle, is the most traditional work in this selection. The first movement moves formally between free fantasia and variation; the seemingly improvisatory design proves on close listening to be a fine working of a few basic motifs from the opening themes of clarinet and violin. There follows a kind of scherzo with trio, its middle section marked by melodic unrest. The slow third movement, with its striking rhythm, distantly recalls a procession; in its middle a gentle waltz-like melody develops that is soon turned from major to minor, and the movement closes in C major with an almost apotheotic intensification of the processional rhythm.
Friedrich Scholz, born in 1926, knows the musicians of the Trio Contrasts; the sound world of his Theme with Variations of 1998 moves, like Einem’s Verdehr Trio, within a freely tonal frame, the composer scarcely following inherited patterns — the structure develops organically out of the music. It begins with a simple melody advancing calmly in the piano. As the main theme it returns at central points of the work, but at the same time it generates motivic material: out of the leisurely rocking piano movement a violin figure soon develops, which passes into a swinging chain of semiquavers in the clarinet. The members of the Trio Contrasts are Klaus Esser (violin), Christian Dollfuß (clarinet) and Christoph Hengst (piano). The recording was made from 28 to 31 August 2000 in the Neue Aula of the Folkwang-Hochschule in Essen; the CD runs to 55:57 and the booklet has 24 pages in German and English.