Ru
EnE. Lukyanenko
Piano Trio in B major, Op. 8 by J. Brahms in the contemporary concertpedagogical repertoire: appraisals and prospects
The article is devoted to the Piano Trio in B major (1854/1889) – one of the well-known chamber ensemble works dating back to the early period of J. Brahms’ work. This work, published a few months after its completion, was assessed very positively by contemporaries and appeared in the concert programs of respected performing musicians of the second half of the 19th century. However, at the end of his life, the composer carried out a radical revision of the Trio in B major, which entailed repertoire adjustments: the early edition of this opus was forgotten for a long time. Nowadays, thanks to the apparent availability of both versions of the Trio, experts are undertaking comparative analytical research that allows them to record and describe the transformations of the appropriate author’s text with maximum accuracy. At the same time, estimates of the scale and significance of the described changes differ. According to the researcher, it is permissible to consider two correlated editions as independent works based on related (largely coinciding) musical material. Taking into account the compositional, dramatic and stylistic features of the indicated editions, it seems possible to conditionally call the early version of the Trio op. 8 “poly-stylistic”. It presents an individual synthesis of classical (“Beethovenian”) traditions and achievements of the “new German school” (F. Liszt, partly R. Wagner). The tangible difficulties accompanying the performing reading of this version determine its address: these are professional concert musicians with extensive artistic experience and artistic outlook. The later (“classical”) version of the Trio B major, much more compact and laconic, is characterized by compositional clarity and dramatic focus, which contributes to the successful development of this edition in the context of the high music school educational process and concert and pedagogical performing practice.
Key words
J. Brahms, chamber ensemble work, Piano Trio in B major Op. 8, author’s versions of 1854 and 1889 years, concert-pedagogical repertoire of high music schools.
For citation
Lukyanenko E. Piano Trio in B major, Op. 8 by J. Brahms in the contemporary concert-pedagogical repertoire: appraisals and prospects // South-Russian Musical Anthology. 2024. No. 1. Pp. 140-145.
