BIOGR A PH Y

United by the spirit of a Belgian symbolist painter whose exceptional

work bears witness to the vitality of art in Brussels at the turn of
the 20th century, Sadie Fields, Stephanie Salmin and Romain
Dhainaut share their formidable experience and creativity to present
innovative programmes with enthusiasm and commitment. Trained
in the most prestigious European academies (Chapelle Musicale
Reine Elisabeth, Royal Academy of Music London, the Berne, Mons,
and Brussels Conservatoires) and holders of numerous prizes and
awards, they individually lead rich careers, performing around the
world and recording a wide variety of solo and chamber music
repertoire. Their shared curiosity, passion, and dedication to music
was clear very soon after they met in 2014, and this innate musical complicity allows Trio Khnopff to explore the
possibilities and push the emotional and technical boundaries of the piano trio medium.

Free spirited and avant-garde, resolutely modern and uncompromising, Khnopff left a legacy of paintings of Sun 05 April 2020 • 6.30pm
incomparable seductiveness: mysterious portraits, melancholy landscapes, and indecipherable mysteries. Music
- or silence - often holds a special place. His career spanned the years 1880 to the 1920, an epoch of great

TRIO KHNOPFF
artistic experimentation and adventure. Beyond their extensive knowledge of the ‘great repertoire’, Trio Khnopff
is passionate about presenting works of this period, creating a dialogue between more famous works and those
that have been unfairly forgotten by history. They regularly play Weinberg, Frank Martin, Krenek, Lajtha, Jongen,
Saint-Saens... alongside Brahms, Dvorak, or Piazzolla. The trio performs frequently in festivals and concert series in
Belgium, and is regularly invited to play abroad. Their first album, ‘Weinberg – 1945’, was released in spring 2019
by Pavane Records.

DINE A F T E R T HE CONCE R T NE X T AT CON WAY H A L L

We are pleased to announce that the following **Please note: there is no concert on 12 April** Violin • Sadie Fields
restaurants will offer an exclusive 20% discount on SUNDAY 19 APR • 6.30pm
food to Conway Hall concert-goers on the production Galliard Ensemble & Simon Callaghan (piano) Cello • Romain Dhainaut
of tonight’s programme: Strauss | Die Fledermaus Overture
Café Rouge • 77 Kingsway Thuille | Sextet in B flat Op. 6 Piano • Stephanie Salmin
Pizza Express • 99 High Holborn Beethoven | Quintet in E flat Op. 16
Poulenc | Sextet FP100

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Concerts - Lectures - Masterclasses - New Works - Educational Events

We welcome everyone who values the piano trio medium and would like
to support its development. Our membership is international and includes
professional trios, composers, teachers, students and corporate members.

www.pianotriosociety.org.uk

Patrons: Stephen Hough • Prunella Scales CBE • Hiro Takenouchi • Petroc Trelawny • Timothy West CBE
Conway Hall Sunday Concerts are an integral part of the charitable activities of Conway Hall
Conway Hall is owned and operated by Conway Hall Ethical Society • registered charity no. 1156033)
We are hugely grateful to the CAVATINA Chamber Music Trust for subsidising free tickets for 8-25 year-olds

conwayhall.org.uk/sundayconcerts conwayhallsundayconcerts chsunconcerts Please turn off all mobile phones and electronic devices • No recording or photography allowed at any time
 PR OGR A MME
Robert Schumann (1810-56)
FANTASIESTÜCKE OP. 88 (1850) [18’]
I. Romanze (Nicht schnell, mit innigen Ausdruck)
II. Humoreske (Lebhaft)
III. Duett (Langsam und mit Ausdruck)
IV. Finale (Im Marsch-Tempo)
Johannes Brahms (1833-97)
TRIO NO. 1 IN B OP. 8 (1855 REV. 1889) [35’]
I. Allegro con brio — Tranquillo — In tempo ma sempre sostenuto
II. Scherzo: Allegro molto — Meno allegro — Tempo primo
III. Adagio
IV. Finale: Allegro
INTERVAL
Refreshments will be available in The Hive
(Please do not bring glasses into the Main Hall)
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-76)
TRIO NO. 1 IN C MINOR OP. 8 (1923) [13']
Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-96)
TRIO [30’]
I. Prelude and Aria. Larghetto
II. Toccata. Allegro
III. Poem. Moderato
IV. Finale. Allegro moderato
Tonight’s performance will finish at approximately 8:30pm.
PR OGR A MME NO T E S
Tonight’s concert is a celebration of two creative friendships, that between Robert Schumann and
his younger protegee Johannes Brahms, and that between Dmitri Shostakovich and the Polish
émigré Mieczysław Weinberg.
Robert Schumann started his Fantasiestücke for piano trio in 1842, the year he produced his piano
quartet, piano quintet and three string quartets. The Fantasiestucke was a rather less ambitious
work but Schumann suffered somewhat from creative fatigue, described as ‘nervous weakness’, and
only finished the piece in 1843. It was not published until 1850, and Schumann almost certainly
revised it before publication. In four movements, it was designed for domestic performance by
amateurs, with lighter writing for piano and strings. There are four movements; a melancholy, folk-
like Romanze, a lively Humoreske using related material; a Duett pairing two stringed instruments
with a rippling piano accompaniment; the Finale is a march with episodes.
Johannes Brahms appeared on the doorstep of Robert and Clara Schumann’s house in 1853, and
both were impressed by the 20 -year-old’s talent. Robert was instrumental in Brahms getting his first
major publishing contracts, and Clara programmed Brahms’ music in her piano recitals.
His Piano Trio in B was published in 1854 and premiered in 1855, but Brahms confessed that he
would like to have held up publication and revised the work. In 1871 he cut sections, and in 1889
made revisions so substantial, that some commentators feel that he almost created a new work;
only the Scherzo remained largely untouched. The Allegro is an exuberant movement in sonata-
form, beginning with a broad theme on cello and piano, and ending with a Tranquillo coda. The
Scherzo alternates delicacy with loud outbursts, and there is a lively contrasting trio. The slow
movement opens serenely with a piano chorale-like phrases and a lovely theme on the cello in the
middle section, and the work ends with a turbulent sonata-form finale.
Shostakovich’s Piano Trio in C minor is a student work, written in 1923 when he was sixteen and
studying at the Petrograd Conservatoire. It was a period of great difficulty; his father had died
the previous year and life in Petrograd was full of shortages. The work is in a single movement,
originally named Poème and all the themes derive from the opening chromatic figure. The final
16 bars do not survive and there have been various completions including one by Shostakovich’s
pupil Boris Tishchenko. Shostakovich would go on to become one of the major, and one of the
most popular. composers of the 20th century, despite falling foul of the Soviet Regime a number
of times. It was in his later chamber music, his more intimate works that Shostakovich articulated
his artistic resistance.
Mieczysław Weinberg is perhaps an unlikely candidate for a close friend. Born to a Jewish family
in Warsaw, his father was a well-known conductor and composer of the Yiddish Theatre. At the
outbreak of World War II, Weinberg fled the Nazis and ended up in Soviet Russia. A meeting
with Shostakovich, who was impressed by his talent, was transforming and Weinberg would write
that ‘It was as if I had been born anew’. In 1943 Weinberg moved to Moscow at Shostakovich’s
urging. Weinberg’s powerful Piano Trio of 1945 is one of the first fruits of this new residency.
During the Soviet Era, little of Weinberg’s music appeared in the West, and when it did start
to appear there was a tendency to view Weinberg as simply a shadow of Shostakovich. But
Weinberg’s relationship with Shostakovich was close, the two would regularly share ideas, so
we are now starting to understand Weinberg as a creative personality in his own right, and his
influence on Shostakovich.
© Robert Hugill 2020