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In his history of the piano trio Bernard Jacobsen notes that the medium began as a simple work for three voices in which two instruments supported the third. This practice is illustrated in Mozart's six early divertimenti for keyboard with violin and cello accompaniment, composed in 1764 when he was eight. In 1785-1786, Mozart composed his famous Haydn Quartets, in which, following Haydn's practice, he gave each instrument equal importance so that the musical text became a conversation of equal partners. He transferred this genuine chamber music style to his works for violin, cello, and piano in his last five piano trios; this evening we hear K. 502, the third of these five masterpieces.

Mozart wrote K. 502 while he was composing his last four symphonies and other masterworks. Tamara Friedman and Janet See describe the Trio in this historical context and provide listeners an imaginative journey through the work. K. 502 "places us at the center of the High Classical style and Mozart's involvement with both operatic and concerto genres (Figaro and the C-minor Piano Concerto were composed in this year). The unique fusion of comic and serious elements which distinguishes Mozart's operas is at work here in his chamber music"; the first movement begins with "a sweetly beguiling theme which quickly escalates into dramatic dialogue between the instruments in high energy 'action and adventure' episodes. The middle movement, a heartfelt Larghetto, mirrors the passionate emotion expressed in so many Mozart operas, in which virtually all of the slow arias (and many of the fast ones, as well) are about the emotional rigors, pleasures and deprivations of romantic love. In the concluding Allegretto, the music mimics both comic/serious opera characters and the piano concerto medium, so important to Mozart at this time, with dazzling keyboard writing throughout, a mock cadenza, and a coda of instrumental fireworks."

For many in the audience tonight's concert may be their first introduction to Rebecca Clarke and her music. She was born in Harrow, Middlesex near London in 1886, her father American, her mother German. Chamber music was encouraged in the home, and at eight she began violin lessons. Following violin study at the Royal Academy of Music where she was a fellow student of pianists Myra Hess and James Friskin, she studied composition at the Royal College of Music as the first female pupil of Sir Charles Villiers-Stanford, the Dean of British composers. He suggested that she switch to the viola because it would place her in the middle of the sound of the orchestra, where she could learn how the music was constructed. In 1912 she became one of the first female professional orchestral musicians. She enjoyed a long recital career and was recognized as one of the finest violists of her era, often performing in all women chamber ensembles. She first came to the United States in 1917 as a performer in such an ensemble.

In the 1920s Clarke toured India, China, Japan, and the United States to great acclaim. Her songs and chamber music, published during this time, show the influence of Ernst Bloch, the Swedish born, Jewish-American composer; Frank Bridge, the English composer and teacher of Benjamin Britten; and Russian composer Alexander Scriabin, especially his harmonically and technically innovative late works. Her composing declined, however, late in the decade as the result of, some say, a secret affair with a married man, the famous baritone John Goss.

Unable to get passage home at the outbreak of World War II, Clarke found herself stranded in New York City. She remained there for the rest of her life. In 1944 she married James Friskin, her old classmate from the Royal Academy. Again her composing came to a halt; with the exception of one song, she composed nothing in the last 35 years of her life. She was a ?lost composer? until a resurgence of her music in the 1970s coincided with a rise of interest in women composers.

The Piano Trio is Clarke's best-known work, its style heavily influenced by English folksong and impressionism. Peter Dickinson provides a good introduction: The three eloquent movements are "ingeniously linked through the use of a repeated-note motto theme suggested at once in the piano and soon after delivered by the cello." The Moderato ma appassionato is in sonata form, and this motto is its first subject. The second subject, marked by rising fourths in triads over a pedal point, is presented by the piano. The development section reaches its climax as the second subject appears in massive piano chords. The cello begins the recapitulation where a "luscious coda" opens with an exquisite canonic duet between piano and cello.

A violin solo frames the Andante, which is "haunted by echoes of the motto theme." After "an unusual chorale in four parts for violin and cello, the piano finds its own melody (characterized by a rising fourth) which builds to a luxuriant climax."

"The Allegro vigoroso opens in folksy style, but it soon sounds more like Bartok than Vaughan Williams. This movement is full of reminiscences. A second theme (strings in octaves over a kind of chorale in the piano) leads to a climax," after which the second subject of the first movement is brought back softly in the strings over the piano. The recapitulation is "invaded by the motto theme followed by a reference to the declamatory opening of the first movement. That movement's coda then returns before a throwaway ending."

Schubert lived his entire life in the shadow of Beethoven. His career was cut tragically short by illness, but in the last two years of his life, the most fertile time of his artistic career, he tackled the big instrumental forms in which Beethoven had excelled. His final masterpieces included the song cycle Winterreise, the string quintet, the octet, the last string quartets, the three magnificent last piano sonatas, the "Great" C Major Symphony, and the two piano trios. Prior to the composition of the piano trios in B-Flat Major and E- Flat Major, Schubert had written only one movement in the medium. The work we hear this evening, one of the great masterpieces of the piano trio literature, forms a bridge between the trios of Beethoven and Brahms.

The Allegro is in sonata form, its exposition establishing, as Janet Bedell describes it, "a dynamic opposition between dramatic intensity and gentle lyricism." The opening theme, played by all three instruments in octaves "summons up Beethoven's spirit immediately." The second theme, "softly pattering," and "slightly conspiratorial" is introduced in the piano's upper register. A third "subdued" and "undulating" melody, introduced by the cello, becomes the principal subject of the development section.

Schubert based the Andante, the emotional center of the trio, on the Swedish song "Se solen sjunker," (The sun is going down). The gist of the song text is that "time is running out, hope has fled, the opportunity for love has been lost" (Hefling). The movement, a rondo (A B A' B' A"), opens with "a tragic, resolute march" with "undertones of a funeral procession" (Bedell). The cello introduces the first mournful theme, which is repeated in the piano. The first violin introduces the second theme over arpeggios in the piano. Unexpectedly, however, the "music veers into a savage climax of pain and anguish--the kind of startling outbursts we hear in several of Schubert's late masterpieces." Although the calm theme returns, Schubert "wrenches it harmonically toward an even more violent climax that disintegrates its melodic shape" (Bedell).

A relief after two intense movements, the Scherzo is a canon in which various tunes are stated by one instrument and echoed by another a measure later. The light and delicate main theme stands in sharp contrast to the heavy stomping dance of the trio.

The finale, also in sonata form, opens with a perky theme, leading into a second soft, exotic theme that, as Nathan Barber hears it, "seems to imitate a cimbalon--an ancient dulcimer of Hungarian origin." Schubert dwells on the first theme at great length in the exposition. In the development section he recalls the haunting Swedish theme from the second movement, now played by the cello over the strumming strings of the violin. As it nears the end of its nearly 45 minute duration, Op. 100 can be said to illustrate what some have called the "heavenly length" of Schubert's compositions.