Comparison recordings:
Dvorak Op. 74. (original version) Chilingirian
Quartet members, CHANDOS 9173
Dvorak Op. 74. (original version) Lindsay
Quartet members, ASV 806
Beethoven Op. 9 #3. The Leopold Trio.
Hyperion CDA 67254
Beethoven Op. 9 #3. The Adaskin String
Trio. Musica Omnia Mo 0106
Twenty years ago a
disk description such as the one above
would have been incomprehensible to
any music lover, but the music world
has changed enormously. The giant media
companies that once controlled classical
music are shrinking into irrelevance,
finding a final niche as reprint labels
for their superstar recordings of the
last century, now moving into the public
domain. Like the London and San Francisco
Symphony Orchestras, and the Brodsky
Quartet, the Langroise Trio make their
recordings available over the internet
on a private disk label. Their composer
friends self-publish their music, also
available over the internet. We are
returning to the circumstances of 400
years ago where composers, performers,
and audience knew each other personally
and communicated directly, but now in
the context of an expanded global village.
And, like the LSO and
the SFO and the Brodsky Quartet, the
Langroise Trio are world class artists
meriting comparison with the best there
is or ever was.
Dvořák’s
Op. 74 was originally written for two
violinist friends with Dvořák taking
the viola part. He also wrote his Op.
75 at about the same time for
the same players, but eventually rescored
that work for solo violin and piano,
and in this new guise it became one
of his most frequently performed chamber
works, the original version almost never
performed any more. Therefore, it is
reasonable that the Op. 74 should be
rescued from its unconventional provenance
of string-quartet-minus-cello, and rescored
for conventional string trio. In this
new instrumentation the work sounds
perfectly natural and it is frequently
performed in this guise. The pitches
are for the most part the same, but
the deeper resonance of the larger instruments
gives a warmer and at times more dramatic
sound*.
The Chilingirians play
with the most vibrato and sentimentality,
the Lindsays are a little crisper while
no less emotional, the Langroisians
are slightly crisper still and the most
dramatic overall with marginally closer
recording. David Johnson’s transcription
utilizes occasional octave shifts to
allow changes in register color during
repeats, so the Langroisian’s performance
has more variety of texture, and less
overall lightness than the traditional
instrumentation. The music sounds more
"important", slightly more
orchestral and less of a "charming
miniature." If you love this music
(and who doesn’t!) you will want to
hear it played this way.
In the Beethoven, the
(English) Leopolds play this music as
Beethoven would likely have heard it,
played by a trio thoroughly steeped
in Haydn and Mozart — graceful, smooth
— allowing Beethoven’s abruptnesses
to stand out in contrast. The (Canadian)
Adaskins play the Beethoven in a thoroughly
modern way, fully aware of all musical
history since then, with Brahms, Schoenberg,
Shostakovich — even Stokowski and Mengelberg
— watching over their shoulders. The
small weakness in both these performances
is that through their concentration
on style they occasionally, just for
a fraction of a second, get carried
away and lose focus, forget what is
in front of them. And these are studio
recordings where a momentary lapse can
be, should have been, easily corrected.
The (American) Langroise performance
is a single unedited performance. They
concentrate on the music and on the
sound, with Geoffrey Trabichoff’s gorgeous
singing tone making this music more
beautiful than we would ever expect.
Samuel Smith’s strongly colored and
wonderfully controlled cello tone provides
a solid foundation. All three performances
are very fine, and I would urge you
to hear them all. But the Langroise
is the one you want to own.
Dvořák
and Beethoven notwithstanding, the most
substantial work on this disk is the
Cockey Elegy. On the model
of the late quartets, it is the string
trio that Shostakovich never wrote.
Even the five movement form reminds
one of Shostakovich’s structural innovations
in his later string works. Yet the work
is authentic and original and effectively
projects the composer’s strong personal
convictions. Not since Marga Richter
have we heard such authentic full brooding
intensity from an American composer.
Jim Cockey was born
in Baltimore, Maryland, but has spent
most of his life in Idaho. He holds
a composition degree from the University
of Oregon where he studied with Homer
Keller and Hal Owen. Among many honors
Jim has received three commissions from
the Boise Philharmonic Orchestra, Centennial
Overture, Symphony No. 1,
and Aurora. His Symphony No.
2 received the "Best Instrumental
Recording of the Year" award from the
7th Annual Native American Music Awards.
Jim's Duo for Bass Clarinet and Viola,
commissioned and performed by the Darkwood
Consort, has been performed internationally,
most notably at the recent First International
Bass Clarinet Conference in Rotterdam.
Elegy for an Ancient
Battlefield, commissioned and performed
by the Langroise Trio has been performed
at Lincoln Center where it was very
well received. In addition to composing,
Jim teaches the violin, conducts the
McCall Chamber Orchestra, and occasionally
takes long walks in the Idaho and Montana
woods. He lives in McCall, Idaho, with
his wife, Bernadine Cockey, is an award
winning playwright.
Elegy for an Ancient
Battlefield, is an extremely personal
work. The movement titles are taken
from Stanley Lombardo's stunning translation
of The Iliad. Jim composed this
work immediately following an exhausting
period of time with his autistic son,
an experience which culminated with
his having to look at tragedy, unadorned,
in all its bare honesty and simplicity.
"During the writing, I wondered
where the beautiful sections were coming
from and why I was compelled to write
them ... these moments come from the
part of the self that makes it possible
to keep going during difficult times,
the part of the self that holds on to
hope and vision."
Had the Earnest Trio
#3 been recorded here in full, with
its intensely rhythmic and dramatic,
somewhat Hungarian, outer movements
(written later, it must be said) there
would be no thought of confusing this
work with the previous one. But here
on this disk passing from the Elegy
directly to this "Allegretto"
one is aware of a modest lightening
of mood and a change in viewpoint with
little change in texture. And certainly
no loss of quality.
*The clarinet and viola
can be considered almost interchangeable
in this work as in many others.
Paul Shoemaker
The Langroise Trio: Geoffrey
Trabichoff, violin; David Johnson, viola; Samuel
Smith, cello 
