HAYDN TRIO EISENSTADT - DEDICATED TO HAYDN: 18 PIANO TRIOS CD

SKU/Barcode: 845221070209

This collection of 18 piano trios dedicated to Haydn is itself an homage on the centennial anniversary of another Haydn homage: a collection of six piano pieces commissioned in 1909 by the Revue Musicale Mensuelle de la S.I.M. That project resulted in works by Ravel, Debussy, Dukas, Reynaldo Hahn, d'Indy, and Widor; inasmuch as those works are not well known, it might have been interesting to juxtapose them with the present pieces in some way. As it is, the new trios fill three CDs. They are divided into an unusual set of categories, "Austria," "Europe," and "Continents," but the categories are mixed together in the program itself. One test for a musical tribute is whether you might guess the honoree without having prior background information, and certainly that's not a problem here; several pieces contain direct quotations from Haydn's music (mostly not trios, which may not have been the best choice for the project as a whole), and each one handles the quotations in a different way. One of the choice contributions is Haydn-Destillate by German composer Dieter Schnebel (CD 3, tracks 2-3), which begins with the finale of Haydn's String Quartet in B flat major, Op. 33/2, "The Joke," and variously either synthesizes or further atomizes its elements. Also making use of Haydn directly are Lalo Schifrin's Elegy and Meditation (CD 3, track 1) and William Bolcom's Introduction and Rondo: Haydn Go Seek (CD 2, track 1), and it is a pleasure to have contributions from these two aging giants of composition in the Western hemisphere. The pieces that do not refer directly to Haydn's thematic material are generally in modern idioms. They fall roughly into four groups: those that take Haydn's tightly knit thematic structure as a starting point, those influenced more generally by his humorous mood, those that use single features of Haydn's music that connote something to non-Western hearers, and those with more tenuous connections. Among the most intriguing is Two Nguni Dances by South African composer Bongani Ndodana-Breen, which could fall into both the second or third categories; Ndodana-Breen states as his inspiration Haydn's use of folk or folk-like melodies, adapting them to African polyrhythms transferred to the piano trio medium, and fitting with the Haydn spirit surprisingly well. A few works feel as though they were already in progress and then had the Haydn label slapped on top, but generally an intriguing collection that could serve as a useful overview of the question of how contemporary composers see their work in relation to the High Classical tradition.