The quirky, lengthy, quite informative but at times downright
badly translated booklet essay discusses at some length a ‘what
if’ scenario. What if, Josef Suk had not come so much under the
influence of his father-in-law Dvorák in his earlier days. What
if the double tragedy of Dvorák’s death and that of Suk’s wife
had not hit him within a year and what if Suk was now considered
as fine a composer as Dvorák, after all, and especially on the
evidence of the Opp. 1, 2 and 3 recorded here he had a precocious
and natural talent.
It seems incredible that the Op. 1
Piano Quartet was written
by a boy of about fifteen even if it was, I gather, a little revised
under Dvorák’s guidance before its 1891 premiere. Three powerful
movements beautifully voiced and each given an emotional charge
and imbued with melody and beauty and several striking effects.
It’s the longest work on the CD and its worth remembering that
a Piano Quartet is a demanding form for any composer; I speak
from a certain experience, because all instruments need to be
involved and active throughout. For a young composer this is a
great achievement but for you as a listener the fact that Suk
was a teenager is irrelevant to the music. It is there to be carried
away by. It’s worth adding that even before this work Suk had
written a Mass and a Fantasy for strings.
The Op. 2
Piano Trio which begins the disc is a step forward
from the Quartet, not emotionally but formally with a very powerful
opening movement. The booklet notes by Eckhardt van den Hoogan
speak of Dvorák who having heard the work by this sixteen or seventeen
year old at a student concert in Prague was very keen on it and
told the young man that he “should continue his seeking”. The
second movement is something approaching a Habanera; it certainly
has the right rhythm. The finale, which is succinct and lively,
seems to have a hint of the Eroica scherzo with a touch of the
Bohemian. It was just a few years later that Suk became Dvorák’s
son-in-law and is, this music attests, in many ways his rightful
heir.
The Op. 3 is a two movement work for cello and piano. The
Ballade
and Serenade were written six years apart. The notes give
us no clear dates but 1891/7 seems about right. The Ballade is
moving and intense and the Serenade is tripping, light and airy,
an ideal counterweight. It is beautifully and warmly played and
balanced in this recording.
Jumping now to Op. 17 we come to the
Four Pieces for Violin
and Piano. Suk earned a good living as a violinist in the
newly founded Bohemian, later the Czech String Quartet. His Grandson
(born 1929) was also an (even finer?) violinist of international
repute. I wondered at first why these pieces weren’t in fact called
a Sonata. I expected therefore to find four little pieces which
could be performed separately. Whilst that is, I suppose, still
the case, the work is structured in a loose sonata fashion. First
a Moderato (Quasi Ballata) followed by a scherzo movement oddly
enough marked ‘Appassionata’. The slow movement which is in ternary
form is marked ‘Un poco triste’ and the finale, a perpetuum mobile,
is lively and brief marked ‘Burleska’ These according to the booklet
notes “are not a set of occasional pieces” and I agree. They are
often emotionally charged and harmonically quite complex. For
a less punctilious composer it would surely have been called a
sonata. Perhaps Suk wanted to avoid the Brahms influence that
was all-pervasive at the time and certainly held a strong sway
over him.
Chronologically the latest work is the
Elegy for Piano Trio.
This is basically a ternary form structure and was written for
a curious combination of strings and harmonium for a memorial
service to his great friend the poet who had inspired several
of Suk’s works Julius Zeyer. Zeyer had died suddenly in 1901.
He and Suk were working on a project- a cantata based on a folk
tale entitled ‘Pad Joabloni’ Op. 20 (Under the Apple Tree) when
he died. Suk wrote a heart-felt but not depressingly elegiac lament
which he also transcribed and published as a Piano Trio.
The performances are excellent and I really appreciate the close
but airy recording. This is music which deserves and receives
fine renditions from each of the artists and the sort of superb
presentation which it gets here.
Gary Higginson
Atos Trio (Annette von Hehn (violin); Stefan Geinemeyer (cello);
Thomas Hoppe (piano)); Martin von de Nahmer (viola) 
