Webern: String Trio, Op. 20 (1927)

The Goeyvaerts String Trio, which was founded in 1997 and focuses exclusively on 20th and 21st century repertoire, perform works of the Second Viennese School by Schoenberg and Webern as well as the powerful and emotional String Trio of 1985 by Russian composer Alfred Schnittke.

Arnold Schoenberg’s pupil Leonard Stein recalls that the composer apparently meant the many strange, seemingly incoherent events in the String Trio op. 45 as a musical depiction of the delirium that he experienced after his recent heart attack. Although dating from two decades earlier, Anton Webern’s String Trio op. 20 (1927) is, like Schoenberg’s, a work written according to serial principles. The development of Alfred Schnittke’s String Trio (1985) seems to have been a very intense emotional experience for the composer. It is fairly well known just how much Schnittke, as a Soviet composer, suffered under the cultural isolation imposed on him by the Soviet authorities.

The Goeyvaerts String Trio owes its name to the late Flemish composer Karel Goeyvaerts (1923-1993) who played a key role in the fundamental changes in European new music. They have collaborated with several major contemporary composers including Giya Kancheli and Peter Swinnen, as well as performers such as Alexander Ivashkin (cellist and biographer of Alfred Schnittke), and Henk Guittart of the Schoenberg Quartet.

Recorded in 1957