Wu Han playing the piano while other musicians play in the background

Chamber Music Series

Piano Trios: Beethoven, Smetana, and Dvořák

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

Performances

Oct 27 Tue 7:30PM

Performance Run Time: Approximately 1 hours and 50 minutes, including intermission.

The piano trio has long offered composers a direct and personal means of expression, and this program brings together three works that reveal the form from different perspectives. Beethoven’s Piano Trio in E-flat major, Op. 1, No. 1, shows a young composer already expanding the scope of the piano trio, giving each instrument a distinct role and shaping music that moves beyond convention. Czech composer Bedřich Smetana wrote his G-minor Piano Trio during a period of profound personal loss, and its shifting moods give the work a deeply human intensity.

Fellow Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s “Dumky” Trio closes the program. The work stands apart in the chamber music repertoire as both his farewell to his homeland before departing for America and a composition of entirely unique design. The title refers to the dumka, a Slavic folk form marked by sudden contrasts between melancholy reflection and exuberant energy. Dvořák unfolds the work as a sequence of these contrasting episodes, giving the music a sense of freedom and immediacy that brings the program to a compelling close.

Program:

Beethoven | Trio in E-flat major for Piano, Violin, and Cello, Op. 1, No. 1 (1793)
Smetana | Trio in G minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello, Op. 15 (1855, rev. 1857)
Dvořák | Trio in E minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello, Op. 90, “Dumky” (1890–91)

Performing Artists:

Wu Han, piano
Chad Hoopes, violin
David Finckel, cello

About Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS) is one of eleven resident companies of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the largest performing arts complex in the world. The vision for CMS emerged in 1965, when the distinguished American composer and then-President of Lincoln Center, William Schuman, conceived of an institution dedicated to chamber music, housed in its own specially designed recital hall. CMS is part of a distinguished community of resident companies at Lincoln Center, including The Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, and the New York City Ballet.

Under the artistic guidance of Charles Wadsworth, and through the patronage and inspiring leadership of Alice Tully, the plan came to fruition. On September 11, 1969, Alice Tully Hall opened with the first performance of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, inaugurating a new era for chamber music in the United States.

Since that time, CMS has grown remarkably in scope and stature, to become the world’s largest international chamber music producing and presenting organization. Under the leadership of Co-Artistic Directors David Finckel and Wu Han since 2004, CMS now comprises a multi-generational and international roster of over 140 of the finest chamber musicians. CMS presents chamber music of every instrumentation, style, and period, reaching a global audience of over65,000 each year with more than 150 performances and education programs in New York and on tour worldwide.

CMS is committed to broadening public engagement with chamber music through its robust in person education programs and expansive educational media initiatives, including almost 2,000videos and an in-depth about the music resource, available on its website for free. Over its history, CMS has commissioned more than 200 new works from leading composers. The Bowers Program, CMS’s rigorous three-season residency for outstanding early-career musicians, is widely recognized as the most distinguished young-artist program in the field, offering unparalleled mentorship and performance opportunities to the future leaders of the artform.