The horn trio (piano, horn, violin) is a rare genre in music history. Its most important contribution is Brahms' Horn Trio op.40. It is obviously missing here because the program focuses on later times. We do hear here Ligeti's Trio, which had the Brahms Trio as its model. Hence Ligeti's subtitle: Hommage à Brahms. That then is the final piece of this CD, featuring trios from very different musical
… worlds. The musicians had the privilege of rehearsing Hans Abrahamsen's Six Pieces (Sex Stykker) in the presence of the composer himself. Music for Three by John Cage is a precursor to his later "number pieces. These types of 'pieces' involve a kind of patchwork of time brackets in which the musicians are allowed to decide for themselves, according to certain rules, how to fill in these units. Hermann Schroeder's work is much more conventional. His trio is reminiscent of Hindemith's chamber music. The somewhat underrated Charles Koechlin is a composer who always manages to surprise. Such is the case with the Quatre Petites Pièces, which he composed while still studying at the Paris Conservatory with Massenet and Fauré. (HJ)more
