Johann Nepomuk DAVID (1895-1977)
String Trio, Op. 33 No. 1 (1945) [12:36]
String Trio, Op. 33 No. 2 (1945) [17:21]
String Trio, Op. 33 No. 3 (1948) [17:07]
String Trio, Op. 33 No. 4 (1948) [19:44]
String Trio in G major (1931) [12:52]
David-Trio
rec. 2020, Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität, Linz
CPO 555 412-2 [60:20]
Having enjoyed four of David’s symphonies (review ~ review), already released by CPO and reviewed enthusiastically in these pages, I was pleased to be offered the opportunity to review this latest offering from the label featuring his five string trios.
A bit of background will probably be welcomed. David was born in Austria November 30, 1895. His musical studies were carried out at the Vienna Academy of Music with Joseph Marx. His early years were spent as a schoolteacher, organist and choirmaster in Wels. He later held posts at the Leipzig Landeskonservatorium (later the Hochschule für Musik), the Salzburg Mozarteum and the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart. His compositional output includes eight symphonies, several concertos, instrumental works, many for organ, and choral music. His earlier music tended towards the employment of modal harmonies, but later took a more acerbic path, though remaining tonally based. A master of counterpoint, polyphonic structures are scattered throughout his oeuvre. He died in Stuttgart on December 22, 1977.
The recordings here were made in early 2020, to mark the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the composer’s birth. David composed for unusual combinations of two or more instruments many times, but had a particular affection for the string trio, being drawn to the homogenous nature of that particular grouping. All five of his string trios are featured here. There’s an early one in G major dating from 1931, and four trios which constitute his Op. 33, penned between 1945-1948. The Upper Austrian David Trio, to accord them their full title, were founded in 2002 on the 25th anniversary of the composer’s death. These string trios remain at the forefront of their performing repertoire.
The Trio in G major, without an opus number, was written in 1931 and published in 1935. It’s a compilation of two earlier trios from 1928 and 1929, each titled Sonatine. Its late Romantic style pays more than a passing nod to Max Reger. The opening movement is a relaxed affair, in contrast to the central Moderato which feels barren and friendless. The finale is a well-wrought fugue.
The four Opus 33 String Trios date from just after the Second World War, with Nos. 1 and 2 composed in 1945 and 3 and 4 in 1948. In each, David makes great demands of the string players in terms of technique, one example is the extensive use of double and multiple stops.
The Trio Op. 33 No. 1 has a particularly striking middle movement, which begins with an Adagio, doleful and elegiac. This acts a sort of sombre introduction to an animated Allegro leggerio, which is a virtuosic tour-de-force. The David Trio show their mettle with consummate bravura. No. 2 of the set has a first movement which is conversational in character. Once again, the slow movement is dark with a hint of portent about it. The animated finale employs some canonic elements.
The Op. 33 No. 3 Trio doesn’t have a slow movement and, to me, sounds more harmonically advanced than its predecessors. The opener sounds a little unsettled, and the scherzo, which follows, is soused with nervous energy. The work ends with a bustling fugal finale. In the Trio No. 4, all three movements derive from a single tone sequence. I find this Trio a harder nut to crack on account of its harmonic complexity. The second movement contains 23 sections, each seven bars in length, and each treating the tone sequence differently. The third movement is a double fugue, assertive in character.
David is a composer not to be ignored. There’s much to enjoy here, and the David-Trio are to be lauded for their ardent championing of these elusive works. Beautifully recorded, the CPO engineers have achieved an agreeable balance between the three instrumentalists. These compelling scores are a welcome addition to the catalogue.
Stephen Greenbank
