Franz Berwald
(1796-1868): Piano Trios Nos. 1-3
The Swedish composer Franz Berwald was the most distinguished of a
musical dynasty of German origin. He was born in 1796 in, Stockholm, the son of
Christian Friedrich Georg Berwald, a former pupil of Franz Benda in Berlin, who
had first moved to Stockholm in 1772. Franz Berwald's younger brother Christian
August served as a violinist in the Swedish court orchestra from 1815 and as
its leader from 1834 to 1861. He himself had followed family tradition as a violinist,
taught by his father, and was a member of the court orchestra from 1812 until
1828. He also appeared as a soloist and in 1819 toured Finland and Russia on a
concert tour with his brother. Meanwhile he was winning something of a
reputation as a composer, in particular with a symphony, now partly lost, and a
violin concerto that followed earlier works for violin and orchestra.
In 1829 Berwald at last found the necessary patronage for study abroad
and moved to Berlin, where he took lessons in counterpoint, but at the same
time developed an interest in medicine. The early 1830s found him occupied
abortively with operatic composition, but in 1835 he opened his own orthopedic
institute, an enterprise that enjoyed some success over the next six years, until
he decided in 1841 to sell the institute and move to Vienna. There he continued
to pursue his medical interests, while turning his attention to a new opera,
his tenth attempt at the form Estrella de Soria. In 1842 there was a
successful concert of his music, after which he returned once more to
Stockholm, where he hoped for similar success.
Now devoting his fuller attention to composition, Berwald completed his
four surviving symphonies, but failed to achieve a favourable hearing either
for the first of these or for two operettas that he had staged. In 1846 he
returned to Vienna, where critics valued his gifts, as elsewhere in Austria and
Germany and in 1847 he was elected a member of the Salzburg Mozarteum, a
recognition of his distinction. Three years later financial pressure brought a
return to provincial Stockholm once more, but his unsuccessful attempts to find
musical employment either as a conductor of the court orchestra or at the
University of Uppsala now led to a further change of direction and in 1850 he
became manager of a glass factory at Sandö, in the north of the country, later
extending his commercial interests to include a sawmill. Winter visits to
Stockholm were still possible and he was able to continue his association with
music in particular with the composition of chamber music. By 1859 he had
settled again in Stockholm, returning to a musical career. In 1862 his opera Estrella
de soria was staged with some success and two years later he completed his
last opera, Drottningen av Golconda (‘The Queen of Golconda’). At
last he had begun to earn a measure of public recognition, with membership of
the Swedish Royal Academy and the eventual, if at first disputed, appointment
to a professorship He died in Stockholm in 1868.
Keith Anderson
The earliest of Berwald's five trios for violin, cello and piano the
Piano Trio in C major, dates from 1845 and is still unpublished The next
three were published in Hamburg between 1852 and 1854 as Nos. 1, 2 and 3. A
fifth trio, again in C major, was published posthumously in Copenhagen in 1896
as No 4. It was composed during the same period as Nos. 1, 2 and 3, but more
specific dating is not possible. Generally speaking, Berwald's chamber music is
melodically and harmonically more chromatic than his orchestral works, and that
has been attributed to two factors. One is the exposure to opera during his
years in the orchestra pit, and the other is a direct influence from Spohr,
whose music Berwald must have known quite well, but the composer with whom he
shares the greatest kinship in the trios is Mendelssohn. As an experienced
string player Berwald wrote idiomatically for the violin and the cello, but
balancing them with the piano presented problems that few composers after
Beethoven and Schubert have resolved with total success Berwald seemed largely
part unaware of the expressive developments of piano writing during the first
half of the nineteenth century, and the brilliant style of Moscheles and Hummel
remained his model.
Trio No. 1 in E flat major was composed in the autumn of 1849.
Its first movement, Allegro con brio, is perhaps the most perfectly
realised of all Berwalds trio movements. There is an admirable balance and
interplay of the instruments. Trills and pizzicato effects lend colour, and the
lilting first subject, suggesting the writing of the young Sibelius,
establishes a Nordic tone rare in Berwald's music. A bridge passage based on
the first subject leads directly into the Andante grazioso, a slow
movement marked by simplicity and lyrical charm. The finale, Allegro
spiritoso quasi presto, follows without pause and recalls Mendelssohn in
its fleetness.
If the first trio is arguably the finest, the second is the most
problematic, exhibiting those qualities regarded as weaknesses in his chamber
music. Fortunately they are concentrated in the first movement, where the
excessive repetition of rhythmic and melodic motifs and difficulties with
instrumental balance obscure the Beethovenian dramatic climate that may have
been Berwald's intention. The driving initial theme curiously gives way to a
scherzo-like subsidiary idea in the first group, and a whimsical figure
punctuates the lyrical second subject as well Any sense of ennui that this Allegro
molto movement may engender is quickly dispelled by subsequent events. The Allegro
passes without break into the Larghetto, a fairly conventional slow
movement at fist but one that grows into a grotesque cortege. There follows
allowing movement in triple time marked Scherzo – Molto allegro, though
its character seems more appropriate to a finale. It is a fine movement in the
spirit of Mendelssohn, and it indeed turns out to be the finale, with a coda
that compresses a restatement of the first movement into a mere 65 bars.
The second trio was finished in March 1851 and the third followed in
December of that year. Fine melodic inspiration marks the flowing Allegro
non molto, which ha, an overall mood of serenity, coloured by imaginative
instrumental writing. There are many point, of interest in the Adagio quasi
largo, which follows without a break. Here a simple melody given to the
strings is underpinned by the piano in a most unorthodox way that uses the
shortest note values to produce a strumming effect. Without pause the Allegro
molto finale begins with one of those propulsive, wonderfully quirky themes
that no one but Berwald could have conceived A slower, folk like episode
intervenes, and later the theme returns in a fleeting reference that end, a
truly original work in a no less remarkable fashion.
David Nelson