Phantasy for piano trio in C minor

The Phantasy Piano Quartet heard in these concerts three seasons ago was commissioned from Frank Bridge by Walter Wilson Cobbett as a result of the profound impression made on him by the Phantasy Piano Trio in C minor when it won the first prize in the second Cobbett competition in 1907. Although the Piano Quartet is generally regarded as the finest of Bridge’s pre-war chamber works, the Piano Trio is in no way inferior: on the contrary. A comparatively ambitious interpretation of Cobbett’s phantasy principles, it is cast in a single arch-like span (though with clear breaks between the main sections) including elements of the first-movement, slow-movement, scherzo and finale features conventionally expected of the piano trio.

Thematically, the work is based almost exclusively on the rising thirds uttered fortissimo on violin and cello in the grim opening bars of a con fuoco introduction in C minor. The following slightly slower (ben moderato) section, beginning with quietly undulating piano arpeggios, includes a first subject introduced espressivo on the G-string of the violin and – after a dramatic return of the con fuoco material and a fanciful reversal of its rising thirds – a lyrical second subject in E flat major on piano. Although there is a poetic little development, there is no recapitulation at this stage. A one-bar silence is followed by an A-major Andante based on a nostalgic cello melody. This slow-movement equivalent is interrupted by an entertaining Allegro scherzoso which, with its palindromic shape and its allusion back to the con fuoco material at the very centre, is the turning point of the construction. The Andante is resumed on the piano and achieves an enchanting A-major serenity before the return, in its original grim form, of the con fuoco introduction. Although the espressivo violin melody is duly recapituled in C minor, the second subject is this time recalled in C major and that key is retained to the end – as a sonorous coda, signalled by an exultant transformation of the once grim rising thirds, triumphantly confirms.

A realist as a businessman – he made a fortune as founder and chairman of the Scandinavia Belting Company – Walter Wilson Cobbett was a fantasist as a patron. His mission to establish the “phantasy” as a modern equivalent to the Elizabethan instrumental “fancy “ was doomed to failure: composers’ enthusiasm for the form lasted no longer than the availability of Cobbett money to reward them for their efforts. Even so, a whole repertoire of “phantasy” pieces was created under his patronage and more than one generation of British musicians benefited from it, either as participants in Cobbett competitions or as recipients of Cobbett prizes at the RAM and RCM (including Frank Bridge’s pupil, Benjamin Britten, in 1932)

After coming second to William Hurlstone in Cobbett’s first competition in 1905, for a Phantasy String Quartet, Bridge won the first prize in the next competition, for a Phantasy Piano Trio, two years later. Cobbett was so impressed by the Piano Trio that he commissioned the Phantasy Piano Quartet from him in 1911, so sponsoring a score generally reckoned to the the finest of Bridge’s pre-war chamber works. Actually, he Piano Trio is in no way inferior to the Piano Quartet. A comparatively ambitious interpretation of the phantasy form, it is cast in a single arch-like span (though with clear breaks between the main sections) that includes elements of the principal features conventionally expected of the piano trio.

Thematically, the work is based almost exclusively on the rising thirds uttered fortissimo on violin and cello in the grim opening bars of a con fuoco introduction in C minor. The following slightly slower (ben moderato) section, beginning with quietly undulating piano arpeggios, includes a first subject introduced espressivo on the G-string of the violin and – after a dramatic return of the con fuoco material and a fanciful reversal of its rising thirds – a lyrical second subject in E flat major on piano. Although there is a poetic little development, there is no recapitulation at this stage. A one-bar silence is followed by an A-major Andante based on a nostalgic cello melody. This slow-movement equivalent is interrupted by an entertaining Allegro scherzoso which, with its palindromic shape and its allusion back to the con fuoco material at the very centre, is the turning point of the construction. The Andante is resumed on the piano and achieves an enchanting A-major serenity before the return, in its original grim form, of the con fuoco introduction. Although the espressivo violin melody is duly recapituled in C minor, the second subject is this time recalled in C major and that key is retained to the end – as a sonorous coda, signalled by an exultant transformation of the once grim rising thirds, triumphantly confirms.