Mendelssohn Trios complete!

[furtwaengler]

(Down the page, Trio no. 1 Op. 49 in D minor has been uploaded. Date of recording: February 24, 2004)

And here, Trio no. 2 Op. 66 in C minor

FLAC's plus bonus greenroom coverage: https://www.mediafire.com/?95794j38hi5yzsg

January 27th, 2008. Very live.

A fiddler for a famous country music star, a cellist at a 60% hearing loss, and a pianist who got his education from reading the backs of sugar packets...This is not the Berlin Philharmonic playing Bruckner's 8th as routine; this is the provincial orchestra struggling, fighting, and against all odds, by grit and determination, conquering the mountain with great passion. I have a job where I go from room to room playing for singers' lessons and accompanying college students at a small university just trying at significance. They let me do things there. To play a recital, all's I have to do is ask and book the date, and people will be there. We've had some tremendous fun; I've played things I would not play anywhere else. The nature of these performances is to do what inspires when it inspires, and this has given birth to a series of "one off" performances with titanic moments (and the other side some slip in the mud failures). But we have great fun.

This is a recital that almost didn't happen on account of a deep cut on the tip of my right index finger - the worst pain I've felt in my life! I tried in simple voice lessons, slipping out because I was in tears at the very touch. A nurse deadened the nerve with some liquid stuff and wrapped it in a bandage, thus saving this concert. I don't know if you've ever played with a numb finger before...it was not as hard as it sounds; it was like running on air in a sense...a certain worry removed.

But then there are the quirks. I am not a fan of turning pages, or of page turners assisting me. It's an awkward quirk producing wild experiments like this:



The Henle score printed small, cut up, and pasted to poster board, one per movement. This was pure, utter genius from my mind, until it produced what I think is the most terrifying moment I've had on stage. I...got...LOST! Lost in THAT! It was but a moment of panic in the beautiful B theme in the first movement, and I then found my bearings. You can guess I stuck to that thing as tight as I could stick until it was over. Oi...

But what we have is the C minor trio of Mendelssohn. It's not the D minor. It's the rarely played, too often neglected, fire breathing C minor...and it is MAGNIFICENT! Truly one of the composer's best efforts, a darkness to light transition for the ages. It must be listened to in a sitting, all that tension mounting up to the great chorale quote of the last movement. MAGNIFICENT! Ah...

The short of it...This concert is almost 3 years old. I happened to listen to it yesterday on my ride into town, and I was really bowled over by the memory. There are too many warts to count, but we hung together, and in the end we overcame. I had to share it with you.

I really hope it moves and inspires you as well. Happy, happy listening. High quality FLAC's above, low quality mp3's below.

Dave

[viking]

Bravo!

Despite a few bumps I thought you played extremely well.  The two most noticeable things for me were the quality of the recording and a few less than sweet moments from the string players.  However, leave it up to Mendelssohn to throw in a spectacular ending just at the right time.  You guys (or girls?) certainly finished on a strong note!

[perfect_pitch]

Furtwaengler - loved the performance. I so love this trio. Some of the harmonies in this piece are just so voluptuous.

I loved this performance. Well done.

[rachfan]

Hi Dave,

Bravo!!  I listened to all four movements and was very impressed by your artistry and musicianship in this performance.  Outstanding!  The sound quality was quite good too.  The string players were occasionally off pitch a bit, but I do understand that it takes considerable seasoning to be able to have a sense for starting a new phrase and to get it exactly right. Overall they did a good job in this trio though.  Plus everyone stayed together quite well.
  
In videos I've seen some of wolfi's cutting, pasting and mountings of scores that he's used at recitals. But this one you constructed is truly amazing!  Let me ask you this though: Had you had an absolute "ace" page turner, could you have achieved the same result with the added benefit of consistent, full-sized score pages?  Just wondering.

Again, this is a marvelous performance!

David

[furtwaengler]

Thanks, Viking, perfect_pitch and rachfan. Yeah, probably the string players would not want this shared...I did it for myself, knowing it's among friends, and not an extraordinary amount of people would hear it (though I've noticed over 100 downloads of another old upload has been reached on mediafire..Yikes!). Individual mistakes can mar a recording for some people (and often does when it's me), but I'm thinking more of the direction of a performance. Mistakes are not necessarily welcome, but performances are rarely alive unless they are live. Some of my favorite recordings are broadcasts of live concerts, where sometimes there are really big flaws, but the performances is there and more alive than any digital (in the technical sense) study job could produce...I'm thinking of a Tennstedt conducted Mahler 3 with the Minnesota Symphony...horrible tuning in the brass in some of the most important parts, but a more moving performance I have never heard!

The ensemble is two males and a female, in case it matters. I wrote a little bit about the cellist here: https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=35758.0

As for the music/page turner thing. It works well to have a *good* page turner, and it would have been better for this performance, but there are a few mental things going. I like having access to the whole piece at once, even when it's absurd...Schubert 958 and 959 printed nine pages to a sheet, the entire sonatas setting on four sheets each. I tend to over react and dog-ear obsessively when I play from books. So in truth I've usually working with a piece in copies 4 pages to a sheet, or memorizing quickly as I learn (though I never have a great amount of music memorized...life of an accompanist?). Now that you mention it, David, I remember seeing Wolfi's scores too. I'd like to know his thoughts on it.  

Thanks for listening!

Dave

[emill]

Hi Dave !!!!

This is MUSIC to my ears .... and whatever unpleasantness that preceded
the  concert can be easily forgotten with the high quality of the result.
CONGRATULATIONS!

[furtwaengler]

Thanks very much, Emill!

I found this recording of the D minor last night, from a different time in my life. I must not have been very happy with it at the time, for the caption on the CD reads in my own handwriting, "Recorded in one take with no page turner 2/24/04." The ensemble is completely different, except the pianist is the same (but in some ways completely different as well - there are similarities, but I wish I had more recordings from my youth. I'm curious to know who I was). It is not live, and is basically a read through. We performed this live many times in the year before, none of which to my knowledge were recorded - I wish I had cared about recording things then! We had not practiced it for some time when we this read through was recorded, and as a result there are things we'd have refined which are not, but again, I enjoy the memory, even with it being from a really dark time in which I was struggling with life. It's amazing how these emotions pop back up. The two girls in the recording I have not kept in touch with at all though we were a trio for three years. Bad one on me!

Ah well...I had forgotten just how great this D minor trio is, justly famous. And now we have them both. Enjoy!

[emill]

Yes Dave ... Mendelssohn"s D minor has always been a pleaser to me especially the 1st movement. There are some excellent renditions done in YT by young artists; but let me say that your trio with the 2 ladies is NOT bad ... not bad at all despite no page turner!   I have heard this played by some senior students here and really, their playing may have injured further my traumatized ears.

One thing you wrote makes me wonder what you meant -  "I enjoy the memory, even with it being from a really dark time in which I was struggling with life".  Really DARK ... what could it have been? Is this from a philosophical, emotional or perhaps an economic point of view?   Thanks!