Isabelle Faust (Viool), Teunis van der Zwart (Hoorn) & Alexander Melnikov (Piano)

HORN TRIOS BY BRAHMS AND LIGETI

Inspired by a walk in the Black Forest, Johannes Brahms wrote his trio for violin, horn and piano in the summer of 1864. This romantic masterpiece for an unusual setting would inspire György Ligeti to create a similar composition one hundred and fifty years later. Brahms wrote his trio for the old natural horn, an instrument without modern valves that was technically somewhat more limited than the modern horn, but whose evocative timbre appealed to him much more. That is why Brahms would certainly have appreciated the colorful and contrasty rendition of violinist Isabelle Faust, pianist Alexander Melnikov and natural horn player Teunis van der Zwart. Ligeti's horn trio clearly refers to its predecessor in terms of instrumentation and layout, but above all it announces a new wind in Ligeti's oeuvre. The trio explores the use of major and minor third harmonies separately from a tonal context and stylistically refers to older key works such as Le Grand Macabre and Hungarian Rock. Isabelle Faust, praised for her exceptionally pure and slender violin sound, plays Franz Schubert's second violin sonata in between.