Trio in A minor, Op.40 for Clarinet, ‘Cello and Piano
Mässig schnell
Anmutig bewegt
Andante
Allegro Vivace
Until last year, the name of Carl Frühling had all but vanished from musical history. The ‘cellist Steven Isserlis unearthed this Clarinet Trio but has been unable to trace copies of any but a handful of Frühling’s other works, of which over 100 were listed in a major German encyclopaedia as recently as the 1950s. Like so many artists in the 20th century, Frühling came from a cultural milieu which was erased by war and politics; he was born in Lemberg, capital of the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia – a major European city with a predominantly German-speaking population until the First World War started the series of political transformations which would see it become L’viv in the Soviet Ukraine. Frühling moved to Vienna, where he made a career as a teacher and accompanist, performing with such virtuosi as Bronislav Hubermann and Pablo de Sarasate. He died there in poverty, and had been so thoroughly consigned to musicological oblivion that he does not even rate an entry in Grove’s. Until Stephen Hough, Steven Isserlis and Michael Collins recorded this Trio for RCA in late 1999 he was effectively a lost composer. The Trio shows all the influences one would expect from its time and place; Brahms, Wagner and Grieg, but Isserlis feels nonetheless that Frühling displays a strong and individual musical personality, characterised by lyrical warmth and humour, and a touch of the operatic. It is laid out in the four broad movements used by Brahms in his Clarinet Trio, also in A minor. Listening to it today, you may feel it a sorry reflection on the century just past, that such beautifully-crafted and enjoyable music could simply be abandoned. But in a century in which composers of the stature of Erich Korngold and Berthold Goldschmidt could be banished for decades from the repertoire, the reputation of the modest Austrian chamber-musician Frühling never, perhaps, had a fair chance.
R.G.Bratby, 2000
Copyright Classical Notes.co.uk 2000
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