CVCMF 2021 - Robert Fuchs Trio in f-sharp minor, Op. 115 (1921)

00:01 Allegro molto moderato
09:14 Andante grazioso
14:53 Allegretto scherzando
20:16 Allegro giusto


Recorded in concert / live on August 14, 2021
Chandler Center for the Arts. Randolph, VT.


Violin: Louise Owen
Viola: Michael Roth
Piano: Adrienne Kim


cvcmf.org


Audio/Video engineer: Peter Weitzner


Trio in f sharp minor for violin, viola and piano, Op. 115 . . . Robert Fuchs
(Born February 15, 1847 in Frauental, near Deutschlandsberg, Styria, now Austria; died in Vienna on February 19, 1927)
 
Robert Fuchs made a very significant contribution to the musical life of Vienna in the latter part of the nineteenth century as teacher, performer and composer.  Fuchs was the youngest brother of Johann Nepomuk Fuchs, a well-known composer.  He studied the flute, violin, piano, organ and thoroughbass with his brother-in-law at an early age.  In 1865 he moved to Vienna and earned a meager living as a répetiteur and teacher, becoming the organist at the Piaristenkirche the following year; he studied composition at the conservatory with Dessoff.  He composed a great deal of music over the years, mainly piano, orchestral, chamber, and choral music.
 
In 1875 he was appointed conductor of the orchestral society of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde and professor of harmony at the Vienna Conservatory, where he later taught theory and counterpoint and eventually became Director. He was also organist of the Hofkapelle from 1894 to 1905.  At the Conservatory from 1875 to 1911, he taught a generation of musicians that included Mahler, Sibelius, Franz Schmidt, Hugo Wolf, and Alexander von Zemlinsky, and Georges Enescu.  He was a friend of Brahms, who gave him early encouragement as a composer and introduced him to Simrock.  Brahms, who thought highly of his work, was particularly impressed by his First Symphony for which Fuchs was awarded the Beethoven prize in composition by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in 1886. In 1891, Brahms said: “Fuchs is a splendid musician; everything is so fine and so skillful, so charmingly invented, that one is always pleased.”
 
Schubert was a powerful influence on Fuchs’s composition.  One of the strengths of Fuchs’ work is its rich lyricism, and many of his compositions are dominated by it in much the way Schubert’s were.  Brahms also had a great impact on the work of his young friend: due to his influence, Fuch’s music became more rhythmically involved; some of his themes also contain Brahmsian characteristics.  Fuchs’s later style developed independently of the presence of innovators around him in his those years.  His work was untouched by the musical influence of Wagner or Mahler or the new trends of the composers of his own city, Vienna, at the turn of the century where Schoenberg, Berg and Webern all worked.  Instead, he continued to write with subtle refinement, economy and thematic ingenuity, and his work, until lately, was never much known outside of Austria.
 
Fuchs’ chamber music reflects the post-Romantic musical atmosphere of late 19th century Vienna; it is characterized by its expressiveness, wide tonality, and extensive use of chromaticism. He composed this trio for violin, viola, and piano and completed it in 1926, although some date it from 1921; it is one of his last works but was not his first work for this unusual combination of instruments, which he had featured in his Seven Fantasy Pieces, Op. 57, thirty years before.  Usually cello rather than viola is included in trios for two strings and piano, but there were precedents written by Mozart and Schumann. Fuchs’ trio was out of print for almost a century and was only reprinted recently, but, “with its lovely and melodious character,” the trio deserves to be better known.
 
The opening movement, Allegro molto moderato, is lyrical, melancholic, and yearning, with a rhythmically engaging theme that seems influenced by the tonalities of late Brahms as well as the music of Dvořák. The texture is lighter than in piano trios where the cello is the low instrument; but in this work, Fuchs gives the piano’s lower octave that responsibility.
 
The second movement, Andante grazioso, is bright and good spirited. Some darkness intrudes in the central section where the music becomes more dramatic, and for some time a bit stormy.  The third movement, Allegretto scherzando also has a more serious mien, sometimes even a sad feeling, until the central section where an upbeat spirited feeling shines through. The Vivace, a fast section in duple time, becomes light and buoyant. The finale, although lively, seems to be a bit stoic in feeling, even though it has a Hungarian-Czech dance-like feel; it moves ahead to a determined and serious, even somewhat dark, conclusion.

notes are copyright © Susan Halpern, 2020.