27/04/24 Zemlinski Trio

Peter Cigleris – clarinet
Evva Mizerska – cello
Emma Abbate – piano

Programme

Phillys Tate
(1911-1987)
Sonata for clarinet and cello
Poco lento cantabile – Vivo – Adagio non troppo, alla Sarabanda – Finale (Quasi Variazioni)
Johannes Brahms
(1833-1897)
Trio for clarinet, cello and piano in A minor, op. 114
Allegro – Adagio – Andantino grazioso – Allegro
Interval
Ludwig van Beethoven
(1770-1827)
Trio for clarinet, cello and piano in B flat major, op. 11
Allegro con brio – Adagio – Tema con variazioni (Allegretto)
Nino Rota
(1911-1979)
Trio for clarinet, cello and piano
Allegro – Andante – Allegrissimo
They say: The Zemlinsky Trio comprises three distinguished soloists who come together to share their passion for chamber music. Come and experience the rare combination of clarinet, cello and piano in a musical journey from Beethoven to film composer Nino Rota, via Brahms’ acclaimed clarinet trio. 

Review

ZEMLINSKY! – You know – Alexander Zemlinsky!

You didn’t know?   Nor, I suspect, did the majority of the audience at St Andrew’s, Curry Rivel on 27th April until they heard it as the name adopted by the three accomplished musicians who were to entertain them that evening.   He was, in fact, an Austrian composer, teacher and conductor who lived from 1871 until 1942 and who, among his other achievements, composed a clarinet trio which apparently impressed Brahms to whom we return in a moment.   He clearly impressed our trio of Emma Abbate, piano, Evva Mizerska, ‘cello and Peter Cigleris, clarinet.

Their programme began, not with him or Brahms, but with Phyllis Tate (1911-1987) in her sonata for ‘cello and clarinet.   (Piano sidelined for this one.)   Easy listening it was not.   It might fairly be described as abrasive and the audience applause on a scale of reserved to rapturous could best be described as polite.

With the next piece, the Brahms I promised you, the audience was a great deal more comfortable.   His trio in A minor op.114 with the three instruments was written after a later-life encounter with a masterly clarinettist, Richard Mühlfeld.   Perhaps it was his being in later-life that accounts for the slightly autumnal and melancholy edge to the work.   He was apparently contemplating retirement “having achieved enough here I have before me a carefree old age and could enjoy it in peace”.   Since, at the time, he was enthusiastically courting a 28 year old soprano Alice Barbi, it is not altogether clear what he had in mind.   However that may have been, the audience enjoyed a return to mainstream and their appreciation registered appropriately.

The Brahms went down well but Beethoven’s B flat major op.11 really did allow the trio to give free rein to their virtuosity.   The Gassenhauer, as it has become known, is an untranslatable label for that work.   Think of a ditty, a melody, a refrain that everybody knows and vast numbers whistle in the streets or hum to themselves in the bath and you have the idea.   Beethoven used this one with nine variations.   Whether any of those was composed in his bath is not known but it went down a storm with the CRM audience.   There was the palpable feeling that this was surely what our recently deceased founder, Canon John Simpson, had in mind in bringing classical music to the heart of Somerset.

The final work in the programme was another trio for the same combination – this one by Nino Rota (1911-1979).   There was a sense of trepidation in the air.   A return to “new” music?   More dissonance from another unknown?   Never could anxiety have proved more ill-founded!   Nino Rota was christened Giovanni Rota Renaldi.   History does not account for the adjustment to his name or when it happened.   Was it when he knocked off his Oratorio at the age of 11 or was it at 13 when he composed his lyrical comedy “Hans Christian Andersen”?   One suspects that his move to the USA from Milan at the age of 19 may have had something to do with it but there was plenty of time during his writing over 150 film scores including most of those for Frederico Fellini who asserted that he had “a musical approach worthy of celestial spheres”.   At 61 he was still six years away from his own final trip to those celestial spheres when he wrote the trio to which our three gave their all for 15 minutes through Allegro, Andante and Allegrissimo – which terms give you the flavour, the fervour, the exuberance and the elan.   It was a superb conclusion to a fascinating evening.

Malcolm Cotterill

Peter Cigleris

Clarinettist Peter Cigleris is in demand as a soloist and chamber musician. He has appeared on BBC Radio Three’s ‘In Tune’ programme talking with Sean Rafferty and on a separate playing live with the Tippett Quartet. He has also performed live for the BBC in the Radio Three lunchtime recital. Peter has worked with Martin Cousins, Mark Bebbington, Julian Lloyd Webber performing for various music clubs and festivals around the UK including, the Windsor and Wooburn Festival, English Music Festival, Carlisle International Music Festival. Peter is a member of ‘Chamber Music Box’ presenting innovative chamber music programmes in London and the surrounding areas.

Internationally Peter has performed at the Groba Festival in Spain, chamber recitals in France, Netherlands and the US. Concerto appearances include Belgium for the ICA ‘ClarinetFest’ where he gave the world premiere of Peter Wishart’s ‘Serenata Concertante eighty-one years after composition. Italy with Weber’s Concertino, Romania and Mexico with Mozart’s sublime concerto K. 622. While in Mexico Peter also gave the Mexican premiere of Malcolm Arnold’s Second Clarinet Concerto. Most recently Peter was invited to perform in Gyor, Hungary for the European Clarinet Festival.

As a solo recording artist Peter has a growing discography. Peter’s most recent release ‘Rediscovered’ on the Cala Signum label has Peter feature as soloist with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales featuring four British clarinet concertos, of which three are world premiere recordings. The disc has received extremely well received by reviewers and listeners alike. Peter has featured on discs for Cala Records, Heritage Records and Toccata Classics.

As an orchestral player Peter has worked with several well-known English orchestras as well as being involved various session recordings. Peter has also held the principal clarinet seat with the Symphony Orchestra of India and has worked with conductors such as Charles Dutoit and Rafael Payare amongst others.

Peter studied at both the Birmingham Conservatoire and Royal College of Music. Whilst at the Conservatoire, Peter won the prestigious John Ireland Chamber music award with a performance of that composer’s Fantasy Sonata. Peter also performed Malcolm Arnold’s Second Clarinet Concerto as part of the composer’s eightieth birthday celebrations. Whilst completing his postgraduate studies at the ‘RCM’ Peter was awarded the Prix de Fossat and was invited to Cahors, France to present a recital for Her Majesty the Queen of Denmark at a private reception.

Evva Mizerska

Named “rising star” by The Strad magazine, Evva Mizerska is an award-winning cellist, recitalist and chamber musician. Highly sought-after performer, she has appeared as a soloist or recitalist in venues such as the Royal Festival Hall, the Purcell Room (Queen Elizabeth Hall), St George’s Bristol, Conway Hall and the Fairfield Halls. Evva regularly performs at various festivals and concert halls across the UK including Cheltenham, Plymouth, Hexham Abbey and Chester Festivals. Abroad she has performed duo or trio recitals in Austria, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, France, Germany, Italy and Poland. Her solo appearances include Elgar, Schumann and Saint-Saens concerti, as well as Beethoven Triple Concerto and Requiem by Duruflė. Evva has also performed for the BBC3 and Polish Radio.

Born in Poland, Evva graduated from the Frédéric Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw. She later completed the PGDip and MMus courses at Trinity College of Music in London, where she studied with Richard Markson. She also received tuition from Yonty Solomon, Bernard Greenhouse, Raphael Sommer and Erling Blöndal Bengtsson. Evva has been awarded numerous prizes, including the first prize at the Seventh International Leoš Janáček Competition in Brno, the Vivian Joseph Cello Prize and the Leonard Smith Duo Prize in London as well as scholarships and grants in the UK, Germany and the USA.

Evva currently lives in London where she is a cello lecturer at Morley College. Her chamber music partners include pianist Emma Abbate, clarinettist Peter Cigleris, the Veles Ensemble (a string trio, of which Evva is a founding member), violinist Miriam Kramer and guitarist Jiva Housden.

Evva’s latest chamber music CD with the Veles Ensemble, which includes premiere recordings by the Austrian-British serial composer Egon Wellesz, will be released shortly. Her other recordings include the complete cello and piano music by Stephen Dodgson, Krzysztof Meyer and Algernon Ashton (vol 1) (with Emma Abbate) as well as chamber music by Steve Elcock (with Veles Ensemble and Peter Cigleris) – all for Toccata Classics. Evva has also featured in recordings for Naxos and the Polish label DUX. Her CDs received outstanding reviews in magazines such as The Strad, The Gramophone, The International Record Review, Fanfare and German Fonoforum.

Emma Abbate

The Neapolitan pianist Emma Abbate enjoys a demanding career as a piano accompanist and chamber musician. Described as “an amazingly talented pianist” by the leading Italian magazine Musica, she has performed in duo recitals for international festivals and concert societies in Austria, Portugal, Italy, Poland and USA, and at many prestigious UK venues such as the Wigmore Hall, Southbank Centre, Royal Opera House, St John’s Smith Square, St George’s, Bristol and at the Aldeburgh Festival. She also regularly broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 and has recently presented an episode of Inside Music.

Emma’s varied discography includes a series of acclaimed recordings devoted to Italian vocal chamber music, the latest of which is the world-première Franco Alfano: Songs with the leading Italian dramatic soprano Anna Pirozzi. Previously, Emma has recorded Sera d’inverno: Songs by Ildebrando Pizzetti with mezzo-soprano Hanna Hipp and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Shakespeare Sonnets with bass-baritone Ashley Riches. A keen advocate of contemporary music, Emma has released two discs devoted to works by Stephen Dodgson that include his piano quintets with the Tippett Quartet. Other world-première recordings include works for cello and piano by Algernon Ashton and Krzysztof Meyer with Evva Mizerska. Emma also cultivates an active interest in historical keyboards, and has performed and recorded on a range of original instruments for the Finchcocks Charity and at Hatchlands Park and the Russell Collection. Together with Julian Perkins, she has recorded the complete keyboard duets by Mozart and Weber on original Viennese fortepianos. Julian and Emma’s latest duet release, entitled Tournament for Twenty Fingers, features piano duets by British composers from the twentieth century: the disc has received 5 star reviews on BBC Music Magazine and has been chosen by Scala Radio as Album of the Weekend.

Based in London, Emma is a professor at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and a staff coach at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Following her graduation from the S. Pietro a Majella Conservatoire in Naples and an Advanced Diploma from the S. Cecilia Conservatoire in Rome, Emma studied in London with Yonty Solomon. She has been elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in recognition of her ‘significant contribution’ thus far to the music profession.