Photo: Prometheus Trio - Facebook
Prometheus Trio
Prometheus Trio
The Prometheus Trio opens its 2024–25 season at the Wisconsin Conservatory, 7 p.m. September 2, with trios by Haydn, Dvorak and Tailleferre. Wear your dancing shoes as they will also be playing tangos! Violinist Yuka Kadota joins Stefanie Jacob and Scott Tisdel for the first and third programs of this season.
The concert opens with Franz Josef Haydn’s Trio in E-flat Major, Hob. XV: 29, (1797), dedicated to the eminent pianist Therese Jansen Bartolozzi. In recent years superb music by women composers has often been programmed in concerts. The Trio by Germaine Tailleferre that follows the Haydn composition is one such example. I asked Jacob, as we strive to become gender neutral, if that’s the correct way to frame this—if this provides a special satisfaction.
She smiled and replied: “I love discovering good music to play no matter who wrote it!”
Satie or Cocteau?
Tailleferre was one of Les Six, a group of composers brought together according to one story by Erik Satie and according to others, Jean Cocteau was instrumental in their formation. The six: Auric, Durey, Honegger, Poulenc, Tailleferre, Milhaud. Three of these composers are well-known, not so much Tailleferre, though she published extensively, writing music for ballets, one was commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev. She wrote music for many films. She was also part of an artistic circle that included Picasso. Tailleferre composed several operas and masterwork, La cantate de Narcisse, was with the collaboration with Paul Valéry.
After the intermission the trio returns for Antonín Dvorák’s Trio in G Minor, Op. 26. Written in 1876 shortly after the death of his eldest daughter, it is a powerful composition and hints of his “Slavonic Dances” can be heard in the third movement. It’s a composition that definitely says Dvorák—lively, melancholy, and full of Slavic elements.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
Tisdel commented: “This is the third time we’ve played this trio and there is an especial satisfaction in figuring out its pacing, something that is not necessarily obvious from what’s on the page.”
Tango Time
The program concludes with a selection of tangos by bandoneonist and composer Astor Piazzolla; his Milonga: Oblivion and Tango: Otoño Porteño. There were four tangos written for a stage and Otoño, Autumn, is one of them, perhaps a wink at Vivaldi. There’s additional backstory in the program notes.
Regarding tangos, Tisdel said, “They’re always fun, but it's especially fun to play Otoño with Yuka since she has played the solo violin version with orchestra, and she is incorporating some of that version into the one we have always played, making it new again!”
Be sure to mark your calendars. Emmy Tisdel Lohr, violin, will join her parents on January 24, and again on April 21 when they will also be joined by Nicole Swanson, viola for a program with piano quartets by Mozart (G Minor) and Turina. On February 17, Yuka Kadota, violin, returns to fill out the trio.
The concerts take place in the Helen Bader Recital Hall of the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. Complimentary parking is available at Milwaukee Eye Care (1684 N. Prospect Ave.) one block north of the Conservatory. The concert begins at 7 p.m. For tickets and more information, visit wcmusic.org.
