The Eliot Trio will perform piano trios by Franz Joseph Haydn, Camille Saint-Saëns and Johannes Brahms at 2:30 p.m. April 22 in the auditorium of Whitaker Hall.
The Eliot Trio consists of Seth Carlin, professor of music and director of the piano program in the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences; violinist David Halen, concertmaster for the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra; and Daniel Lee, principal cellist for the Symphony Orchestra.
Founded by Carlin in the early 1990s, the group is named for University founder William Greenleaf Eliot and is dedicated to performing masterworks of the piano trio literature. It typically presents one concert each year.
The program opens with Piano Trio no. 40 in F-sharp minor by Haydn (1732-1809). Written during the composer’s “London period” of the early 1790s, this minor-key trio — dedicated to Rebecca Schroeter, a wealthy heiress with whom Haydn had an affair — is notable for its sense of private emotion, especially in its introspective second movement.
The program continues with Piano Trio in F Major, op. 18, by Saint-Saëns (1835-1921). This trio, written in 1863, is joyous in character but also distinctive for its subtleties, which place it in sharp contrast to the composer’s larger, weightier works of the period.
Concluding the program is Piano Trio no. 2 in C Major, op. 87 by Brahms (1833-1897). Composed between 1880-82, this sizable work was written at a time when Brahms’ attention to works for piano — his own instrument — was at its peak. It closely followed the premiere of his monumental Second Piano Concerto (1881), a masterpiece of the genre, but features lighter touches, including waltz-like passages.
Carlin has performed with orchestras around the world and with conductors such as Nicholas McGegan, Leonard Slatkin and Roger Norrington. He has appeared in recital at major international festivals and with Pinchas Zukerman, Anner Bylsma and Malcolm Bilson, among others. In 1991-92, Carlin performed the complete Franz Schubert fortepiano sonatas in New York — concerts that were broadcast nationally on National Public Radio. He performed as soloist with the Symphony Orchestra in Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Triple” Concerto as well as with San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, a period-instrument orchestra.
Halen has been with the Symphony Orchestra since 1991 and was appointed concertmaster in 1995. He frequently appears as a soloist, both with the Symphony Orchestra and in performance around the country, and often teams with Carlin for local chamber concerts. As co-founder and artistic director of the Innsbrook Institute, at Innsbrook, Mo., Halen coordinates a weeklong summer festival of chamber music performance and training for aspiring artists. He plays a Giovanni Battista Guadagnini violin made in Milan, Italy, in 1763.
Lee, who was named the Symphony Orchestra’s principal cellist in 2005, has performed with ensembles around the world and previously served as principal cello for the San Diego Symphony. Lee graduated from Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music and also studied in the New England Conservatory’s prestigious Artist Diploma program.
Tickets are $15; $10 for seniors, faculty and staff; free for students.
For more information, call 935-4841 or e-mail staylor@wustl.edu.