The Delphine Trio Saturday 27rd June 2026
ABOUT THE MUSIC
One could make the argument that melody reigned supreme in music from the late 1700s and early 1800s, while harmony took on that role for most of the 1800s. Since 1900, rhythm and timbre – the quality of sound itself – tend to occupy centre court in the minds of composers. This is not to say that these core elements of music are not intricately interconnected, but this admittedly oversimplification does allow us to appreciate the innate beauty and distinctiveness of the four works on this afternoon’s programme.
Beethoven: Trio in B flat, Op. 11
We start with Beethoven. When Ludwig van Beethoven arrived in Vienna in the 1790s, it was the genre of the piano trio (piano, violin, cello) that he used to introduce himself to the Viennese public as both a composer and a pianist. When he wrote a work to feature the prominent clarinetist Joseph Bähr (1770-1819), he turned to the idea of the piano trio and replaced the violin part with one for clarinet. The overall mood of the resulting trio, published in 1798, is one of relaxed elegance. Although written for a specific clarinetist, the piano (Beethoven’s instrument) remains prominent throughout.
The first movement, Allegro con brio, with its opening played in unison, exudes a spirit of brightness and genuine delight. The second movement, Adagio, begins with the cello playing the song-like melody, which is passed in turn to the clarinet and then to the piano. The interdependence of the musical lines in this movement reflects a perfect conversation among friends, one which sometimes turns to serious topics. The final movement is a theme and variations on a hit song from Joseph Weigl’s popular opera L’amor marinaro (Love at Sea, 1797). The light-hearted tune comes from a trio for three bass singers, ‘Pria ch’io l’impegno’, the opening line of which translates as ‘Before I go to work, I must have something to eat.’ Beethoven states the melody first in the piano, accompanied by the cello and the clarinet. As the variations progress, the melody becomes more ornamented, increasingly disguised and less literal. It is as if Beethoven is dissolving the melody and transforming its essence into something quite magical. This particular work for clarinet, cello and piano is sometimes called the ‘Gassenhauer Trio’, a Gassenhauer being a well-known song that people enjoy singing or whistling, but not knowing what the song is or where it came from. The trio’s nickname confirms just how popular Weigl’s tune had become in a short amount of time.
Leighton: Fantasy on an American Hymn Tune
Whereas in the last movement of the Trio in B flat, Op. 11, Beethoven starts with a clear presentation of the melody before morphing it through nine variations, Kenneth Leighton does the exact opposite in his set of six variations inspired by the nineteenth-century American hymn ‘At the River’, the words and music of which were composed by the Rev. Robert Lowry. Fantasy on an American Hymn Tune was written in 1974 for clarinetist Gervase de Peyer, cellist William Pleeth and pianist Peter Wallfisch with funds from the Arts Council of Great Britain. Leighton considered the hymn to be ‘one of the most perfect examples of the union of words and music’. The Fantasy begins with open chords in the piano, an effect that creates a sense of mystery and a blank slate for inspiration. Leighton plays with the fundamental building blocks of the tune and offers only fragmentary glimpses of the entire melody. Early variations evoke moods of jazzy playfulness and intense passion before moving to ones featuring perpetual motion and group improvisation. Finally, the theme itself emerges in all its majesty. The trio is in effect a heartfelt reflection on the hymn’s music and associated text, one that is filled with contemplation, joy and wonder.
Frühling: Trio in A Minor, Op. 40
Carl Frühling is one of those composers about whom we know comparatively little and much of whose musical output is either lost forever or still waiting to be found. Frühling was born in Lemberg, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Lviv, Ukraine), and moved to Vienna by 1887, when he became a student at the prestigious Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Society for the Friends of Music), an institution closely associated with the composer, pianist and choral conductor Johannes Brahms. Frühling’s career was mainly that of a pianist, especially in the realm of chamber music. He worked with such luminaries as the Spanish virtuoso violinist Pablo Sarasate and the highly esteemed Rosé String Quartet, considered to be the finest in Vienna. Frühling’s early works were mostly small pieces for solo piano intended for intimate salons, while his chamber works, including the trio we’ll hear today, are larger in scale.
The Trio in A Minor was probably written around 1900 and follows the typical late nineteenth-century four-movement plan for such works. The opening movement, marked ‘Mäßig schnell’ (moderately fast), radiates the lushness of late Romanticism with its dense textures, propulsive rhythms and dynamic interplay between the three instruments. In several places, the clarinet is actually sounding lower than the cello, the result of which is a highly distinctive autumnal sound. The second movement, with its marking of ‘Anmütig bewegt’ (gracefully moving), is filled with a sense of gentle familiarity and unhurriedness. A more austere mood pervades the third movement, ‘Andante’. Marked ‘Psalmodirend’ (as if reciting a psalm) at the beginning, the plaintive tone gives way to a more tumultuous section before its cathartic conclusion. The final movement, ‘Allegro vivace’, shows the direct influence of Brahms, with its soft unison opening (like that of the finale of Brahms’s Second Symphony), long soaring melodies and bucolic folk-like passages.
Psathas: Island Songs
John Psathas, a New Zealand composer of Greek heritage, wrote his Island Songs in 1995 on a commission from the Zurich-based Kandinsky Ensemble. Each of the three movements reflects Psathas’ artistic response to various Greek folk dance styles. The first captures the percussive and propulsive rhythmic energy embedded throughout the repertory. The second, with its ethereal qualities, is inspired by the slow yet strong zeibekiko dance, while the third, for which the clarinetist must switch to the smaller and higher-pitched E-flat clarinet, evokes the lively sirto dance. Known for his innovative use of sound, Psathas creates some especially notable effects in the work. In the first movement, for example, he calls for the cellist to play pizzicato (plucking the string) as the clarinet intones the same note and sustains it. The result is a fascinating transformation of timbre. In the second movement, the cellist must pluck all four strings simultaneously in what Psathas calls ‘either a cellist’s dream or nightmare, depending on the cellist’. The third movement opens with a glimmering canvas of sound created in the piano and cello against which the E-flat clarinet conjures the sound of the traditional Greek klarino, complete with its associated ornamentation and pitch bending.
–Notes by William Everett
ABOUT THE PERFORMERS
Established in 2020 at the Royal College of Music in London, the Delphine Trio’s founding members include Australian clarinetist Magdalenna Krstevska, Dutch cellist Jobine Siekman and pianist Roelof Temmingh, from South Africa. The trio released its debut album, Adrift, in February 2024 on the Dutch label TRPTK. Among many accolades, the Delphine Trio won the Mixed Ensembles Category of the Royal Overseas League Competition in 2025. The trio has performed at multiple festivals and prestigious venues in the UK and the Netherlands, including the Buxton International Festival, the Royal Albert Hall Classical Coffee Morning Series, Wigmore Hall and Amsterdam’s Grachtenfestival.
For today’s performance, New Zealand-born clarinetist Kenny Keppell is appearing in place of Magdalenna Krstevska. Kenny was solo clarinet with the Arctic Philharmonic from 2020 to 2023 and has appeared as principal clarinet for numerous orchestras, including those of the Welsh National Opera and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Auckland Philharmonia in New Zealand and the Turku Philharmonic in Finland.
