Smetena wrote this trio for violin, cello and piano after the death of a 4 year old daughter. One of the great chamber works. The funeral march towards the end of the last movement gets me every time.

It's a massive work, 30 minutes long. This was the entire second half of one of our concerts last year, and by the last movement we were all pretty much spent. We no longer have the stamina of our youth. But our hearts were in it, and despite some shaky moments (climactic arpeggios in the piano at the end is a wonderful splash of wrong notes :rolleyes: ) we made it to the end, a bit bruised, but happy for the journey.

Enjoy: Smetena trio, last movement

Whose daughter was it?

I'll have to have a listen later, I'm on my way out...but I'll be sure to comment when I have.

Thanks for posting this! Gorgeous!!

That was really good! I didn't notice the wrong notes too much, perhaps b/c the violin and cello were much louder and covered the mistakes!

I thought the ending was quite abrupt, but perhaps it was just the piece?

Great job.

That was a very good performance. Thanks for sharing.

Note: I've downgraded the ecstasism of my response based on the fact that I presume you are professionals. If not, then for such an amateur performance, I would surely stand.

And seriously...whose daughter? :p

Thanks for listening. It was Smetena's own daughter who died, and it must have had quite an impact for him to write such a piece of music.

We're a "minor league" chamber group, that performs locally to a small devoted following. All the members had varied music emphases in college (our violinist for example was music ed and is currently a very successful high school strings instructor). For me, the whole experience is still pretty much a work in progress.

Oh, and about the ending of this movement, yes it does come across abrupt. I miscued the strings and we were slightly out of phase. It should have been less abrupt!

AH...well, I couldn't tell. Great job anyway.

Your audience is lucky! I'd have to listen again to pick up the problems you mentioned. I tend to focus on the strings, and just remember hearing one small spot with intonation issues -- probably one of those darned unison passages. But who cares with such a great performance?

Need a violist?

Actually, in reference also to your other reply RE: Hahn, we do not actually have a permanent violist member. So, we're always looking for guest artists. I was actually one of those guest artists (they didn't have a permanent pianist for years) for several concerts before they asked me to join.

Got any recordings you can post?