Piano Trios (complete)

Dvorˇák was rooted in the centuries-old soil of his country’s popular culture, but it is important to recognize how his education was supported
also by the study of the great classics (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann), and enriched by his relationship with contemporaries (Liszt and Brahms). The time span encompassing the four compositions, collected in this publication and performed by the Parma Trio, ranges from 1875 to 1891. The mid-1970s saw a major turning point in the composer’s life, a kind of rethinking that even led him to destroy part of his output. Many circumstances contributed to shifting Dvorˇák’s attention from the theatrical world, and thus from the influence of Smetana, to focus more specifically on chamber expression. The late Arrigo Quattrocchi has observed how the Bohemian musician in that genre assimilated “that sort of redemption whereby, from Schumann onward, this type of production has now disavowed its cordial and disengaged origin, in order to turn to a density of lines and thicknesses that configure a sonority often allusive toward the symphony orchestra.” Booklet notes edited by Gian Paolo Minardi (La Gazzetta di Parma).