sion of love and passion, sampled first in the key of E-flat major.

After a series of chromatically inspired segments in which mood

swings provide elements of contrast, the E-flat major theme is

heard again, but this time inC major and with less fanfare. Furthersegmented thematic elaborations lead to a dashing coda that

brings the movement to a dramatic close.

Maurice Ravel was thirty-nine years old when he wrote what is

now considered his supreme chamber music masterpiece, the Trio

for Piano, Violin, and Cello inA Minor. The opening movement

(Modere) exploits an unusual rendition of common time (4/4).

Ravel doubles the time signature to 8/8 and divides the measure

into 3+3+2, which results ina pleasurable oscillation. The sec­

ond movement(Pantoum: Assez vif) invokes the texture of the

pantun,a Malayan verse form that is traditionally accompanied by

strumming guitars. The third movement (.Passacaille: Tres large)

contains one ofRavel’s most inspired themes, as beautiful as it is

fascinating. The piano dominates the last movement {Finale:

Anime), carryinga message, according to music critic Edward Cole,

“[that] the interpreter entrusted with this part must always play 

frankly, in the spirit ofa solo performer [who brings] this pure and

luminous work toa close. Strong without heaviness, expressive

without affectation, [this] trio is truly one of the most beautiful

productions of French art.”

Schubert wrote only two piano trios during his short life, both

in 1827, the year before his death. Trio No.2in E-flatMajor, Opus

100, as described by Robert Schumann,“is active, masculine, and

dramatic.” Its opening movement, in which Schumann found“a

deep indignation and passionate longing,” has four themes, or 

three themes anda bridge passage, depending on the listener’s

point of view. The second movement, again quoting Schumann, “is a sigh, rising to spiritual anguish.” It is a sublime Schubertian

strain, supported bya marchlike rhythm, which has been spuri­

ously identified asa Swedish folk song. The third movement,

the Scherzo, makes use ofa canon in the style of Haydn that is

unusual for Schubert’s mature period, contrasted bya trio in waltz

time. The finale, cast in sonata-rondo form, reiterates the theme

from the second movement, giving an early example ofthe nine­

teenth-century practice of cyclical form asa means of providing

unity ina composition. The spirited coda brings the work toa

jubilant close.

- Program notes by Elmer Booze

The Fifty-seventh Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and E LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

2302d Concert

TRIO PARNASSUS

GHIA CHOU, pianist

WOLFGANG SCHRODER, violinist

MICHAEL GROSS, cellist

Sunday Evening, March 14, 1999

SevenO’clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree

LI
PROGRAM

Dmitri Shostakovich Piano Trio No. 1, Opus 8

(1906-1975) (1923)

{In one movement)

Maurice Ravel

(1875-1937)

Trio in A Minor

(1914)

Modere

Pantoum: Assez vif

Passacaille: Tres large

Finale: Anime

INTERMISSION

Franz Schubert

(1797-1828)

Piano Trio No. 2 in E-flat Major

D. 929 (1827)

Allegro

Andante con moto

Scherzo: Allegro moderato

Allegro moderato

Formed in 1983, Trio Parnassus received an award at the International Chamber Music Competition in Colmar, France, only a few 

months after its formation. Concert tours have taken the trio beyond the boundaries of Europe to include numerous recitals in

Canada and North America. With over seventy works in its repertoire, the trio plays works of composers ranging from Carl Philipp

Emanuel Bach to Hans Werner Henze. With fifteen recordings to

its credit, Trio Parnassus records for the German label Dabringhaus

und Grimm.

Pianist Chia Chou was born in Taiwan in 1960 and grew up in

Canada. His music studies began at the Royal Conservatory ofMusic

in Toronto and continued at the University of Toronto Faculty of

Music. Chou completed his formal training in 1978 at the State

Academy ofMusic in Stuttgart, Germany. Theyoungest participant

in the 1981 Sydney International Piano Competition, he took its first

prize, and six years later was awarded the bronze medal in Belgium’s

Queen Elisabeth International Piano Competition. When not making music, Chou indulges in his favorite pastime, gourmet cooking.

Born into a South German family of musicians in 1967, violinist

Wolfgang Schroder won the first prize of the prestigious Jugend

musiziert competition at age seventeen. As a scholar ofthe International Menuhin MusicAcademy, he performed withYehudi Menuhin

throughout Europe and South America. He has also studied at the

Mozarteum in Salzburg under Sandor Vegh, whom he names as a

decisive influence in his career, and Aaron Rosand. Schroder was

appointed artistic director of the European Community Chamber

Orchestra in 1993, and is a member of the Ars Nova Ensemble of

Nuremberg, which devotes itselfexclusively to contemporary music.

Cellist Michael GroB also studied at the State Academy ofMusic in Stuttgart. Besides having been the recipient ofscholarships

from the German Music Council, he has won prizes at various national and international music competitions. GroB has been principal cellist of the Wiirttemberg State Orchestra since 1979. His

hobby is performing baroque music on original instruments.

Shostakovich was only sixteen years old when, in 1922, he was

offered a position accompanying silent films at the Bright Reel Cinema in Petrograd, as Saint Petersburgwas known from 1914 to 1924.

He still found time for serious composition, finishing at age seventeen his TrioNo. 1, Opus 8. The sonata’s single-movement structure

derives from the opening theme, which is chromatic and appears

first in the strings and the bass of the piano. This chromatic episode is followed by a divergent theme that introduces an expres-