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It’s time for the Seattle Chamber Music Festival! We have a concert scheduled for Monday, July 22. Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, you can hear the concerts live at the website of KING-FM. I’ll be providing programs and links to the concerts throughout the summer festival. In preparation for a concert, I’ll give you a preview of the pieces to be played. On concert nights, I’ll introduce the musicians.

The Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello was written by the 19 year old Leonard Bernstein in 1937 when he was a student at Harvard. It’s in three movements.

The opening movement’s introduction starts adagio non troppo, which means “at rest, but don’t rest too much”. There is dissonance, but the idiom is tonal
At 1:46 the main part of the movement begins, marked allegro vivace, which means “quick and lively”. There is a lot of fugue with a hint of folk music. It ends with a largamente section, which means “slow and broadly played with the beats separated”.

The second movement at 7:45 is marked “in the tempo of a march”. It’s got a lot of pizzicato and hints of jazz and folk music. The end is wild.

The third movement at 11:20 starts with a largo introduction, which means “very, very slowly”. This may be his token attempt at a slow movement.
But at 12:50 things liven up with the main body of the movement, marked allegro vivo e molto ritmico, which means “quick, lively and with a lot of rhythm”. Lenny seems rather fond of fugues and pizzicato at this point in his student years. It sounds a lot like Dvorak, but a kind of acerbic and dissonant Dvorak with the rhythmic touch of Stravinsky.

Bernstein: Piano Trio