Trio, Opus 40for flute, viola and cello
| Written: 1929 | Premiered: Paris, Oct 29, 1929 Barrère, Tertis, H. Kindler |
| Length: 14 minutes |
Three movements: Allegro grazioso Andante Allegro non troppo |
| Publisher: Durand | Dedication: Mrs. Elizabeth S. Coolidge |
About this Work:|
Roussel returned numerous times to the trio format; unusual in a composer who was always trying something new, always trying to solve the problems of a new genre. This trio is scored for the unusual combination of flute, viola and cello. His first and third trios are for the more conventional groupings of violin, cello and piano, and violin, viola and cello.
In opus 40, the flute takes the role reserved for the violin in the third trio, with the added piquancy of a different tone color. It proves to be a very effective combination that lets Roussel identify and regulate themes with a particular timbre. For example, the playful first theme in the Allegro grazioso is closely identified with the flute — both in its scoring and also in its utter appropriateness for that instrument. In his early years (well, his thirties and forties, at least), Roussel was a slow and painstaking worker. Although his works never lost their sheen of fine craftsmanship — remarkable, when you remember how late he came to composition — he gradually increased his speed. This trio, written when he was 60, was finished in just two weeks! It was commissioned by Mrs. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, an American patron of chamber music who also commissioned works from figures such as Bartok, Howard Hanson, Malipiero, Piston, Pizzetti, Prokofiev, Schoenberg and Stravinsky. All in all, this is lively and engaging Roussel. |
How does it sound?|
As is common in Roussel's chamber music scored for flute, that beloved instrument dominates while other instruments take an almost accompaniment-like role. Notice this relationship in the Allegro grazioso movement (74K WAV file). |
Other opinions:|
At the beginning of the first movement, a sonata-form Allegro grazioso in F major, one could be forgiven for thinking that the music was by a member of the composers' group Les Six. Whilst the first theme, played by the flute, is tonal, it is flavoured by dissonances in a manner that would have done credit to Honegger. In this movement the flute plays such an important part that one could almost speak of it as a flute concerto. [Per Skans]
This finely constructed work bears the mark of neo-classicism in Roussel's final manner, while avoiding a simple imitation of some imaginary 18th Century style. [??] There is a fervent contemporaneousness in the flute, viola and cello trio, which is far from the hermetic label some critics apply to this composer's chamber music. [Arthur Cohn] The trio for flute, viola and cello is another masterpiece, concise and strong, filled with smiling grace — and it was written in just fifteen days. [Harry Halbreich] The comparative facility with which Roussel wrote on this occasion was not due to any slenderness of content. Without sacrificing sensuous appeal and delicacy of expression, the composer uses an idiom more concentrated and powerful than that of the Serenade; the texture is more closely woven, the form more terse, the ideas more significant. [Basil Deane]
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