String Trio Op.posth “Le Chimay” (1927)

Molto lento – allegro non troppo – presto

Ysaÿe’s String Trio – which is not to be confused with his Trio de concert for two violins and viola Op.19 – is a fascinating enigma. Although we know when it was written, we do not know how, at the age of 69, a composer who was essentially a product of the 19th century could have conceived a work of such expressionist angst. It is not, it is true, as incongruous as Fritz Kreisler writing a Caprice viennois in the twelve-note manner would have been. But the harmonies of the String Trio are suprisingly liberated and, while it might be no more than an extension of the cyclic technique favoured by admirers of César Franck, some kind of serial technique seem to have been applied to the single-movement construction.

What revisions Ysaÿe would have made had he a created a fair copy of the score is something else we do not know. As he left it, the autograph carries few dynamic or tempo directions and is so difficult to read that his intentions are not at all clear. Although the String Trio was first performed in 1964 at the Château de Chimay in Belgium (hence the “Le Chimay” subtitle) and subsequently recorded by the Pasquier Trio, it was first published (by Ries und Erler) in Berlin in 2002. The present performance is based on that edition, the interpretative details of which were worked out by members of the Gaede String Trio largely by reference to Ysaÿe’s masterly Sonatas for Solo Violin.

Although the rising violin line in the opening bars of the Molto lento introduction is not a twelve-note row, it does have something of the thematic significance associated with that kind of material. Viola and cello join the violin in discussing its potential – its emotional as well as its technical potential, as an early climax demonstrates – and by the time the introduction sinks into silence on the cello they seem to have come to some agreement. Certainly, the main theme of the following Allegro non troppo has much in common with it. There are other ideas but that theme remains prominent in one way or another, whether treated canonically or poetically in a manner reminiscent of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht. It apppears and reappears in all kinds of colours and an infinite number of variants – tenderly melodious on the viola, passionate in octaves on the violin – until the section ends on another brooding cello line.

The next and last main section is a combined scherzo and finale, beginning aggressively at first but featuring at an early stage a gently playful theme with pizzicato accompaniment. Highly resourceful episode though it is, the violin slows down the tempo to lead into an at first nostalgic (on viola) and then ecstatic (on violin) recall of material from the preceding section. The scherzo is recalled but this time with more thematic echoes from Allegro non troppo to ensure that the whole construction is integrated before the frenzied ending.