On Sunday, October 27th, at 3 PM we welcome to Northwards House the celebrated Franz Trio, with musicians Avigail Bushakevitz (violin), Ernst-Martin Schmidt (viola), and Constance Ricard (cello). They will be presenting a recital entitled “Viennese Serenades”, featuring works by Dohnányi, Schubert, and Beethoven.
Avigail Bushakevitz, Ernst-Martin Schmidt and Constance Ricard founded the Franz Trio in 2017, shortly after playing their first concert together in France with works of Franz Schubert and of Gideon Klein. As soloists, chamber musicians and orchestral players, they have performed in halls such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Berlin Philharmonie, Royal Albert Hall in London and the Carnegie Hall in New York. Their Alma Mater Universities are in Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, New York and Tel Aviv.
Ludwig van Beethoven and Ernst von Dohnányi were fiery 26-year-olds when they wrote their serenades for string trio. The 19th-century historian Hugo Riemann said of Beethoven’s Serenade, Op. 8: "A short festive march marks the entrance; then begins a slow piece of pleasing, urgently ingratiating expression in the second theme; especially here, the violin and cello indulge in exquisite solo parts; longing lament is also expressed, and the paused ending seems to wait for a response; this is then expressed in a cheerful minuet movement with an animated trio and the humorous coda. A gently lamenting songlike Adagio (D minor) seems to be about fading hope, but it is interrupted twice again by a lively interlude. The players regain their courage to show their art; a lively polonaise resounds and captivates the audience. Another Andante with variations follows, over which all the charm is now poured out... The variations lead back to the introductory march, with which the singers depart."
This work, written just over a century earlier, was to become the model for the elaborate Serenade, Op. 10 by the Hungarian post-Romanticist Ernst von Dohnányi. The similarities in form are uncanny. Both pieces open with lively marches, customary of many 18th-century serenades, marches symbolising the entrance of the royal beneficiary of the evening’s concert, and both have an extensive theme and variations movement. Harmonically speaking, these works could not be more different - Beethoven being a pure classicist, and Dohnányi a true romantic from the early 20th century.
And let us not forget Vienna. Both serenades were composed in The City of Music, where the 20-year-old Franz Schubert also wrote his early String Trio, D.581 in 1817. Firmly rooted in the classical Viennese style of Haydn and Mozart, this exquisite work demonstrates many of the hallmarks that the mature Schubert would become celebrated for, only a decade later.
Join us at Northwards House, Parktown on Sunday, October 27th, at 3 PM for an afternoon in the company of the world’s most beautiful chamber music.