Biography

Martin Beaver - violin
Clive Greensmith - cello
Jon Kimura Parker - piano

Canadian violinist Martin Beaver, British cellist Clive Greensmith and Canadian pianist Jon Kimura Parker came together as a trio in 2013. Two years later, the Washington Post declared that the ensemble was “poised to become one of the top piano trios in the world.” Individually each is an accomplished soloist with an impressive career to his credit. Together they offer the world a special musical experience. As one of Canada’s leading ambassadors of music, Parker has given command performances for Queen Elizabeth II, the United States’ Supreme Court and the Prime Ministers of Canada and Japan. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada, his country’s highest civilian honour. Martin Beaver and Clive Greensmith are both former members of the renowned Tokyo String Quartet. During its 43-year history, this quartet collaborated with a remarkable array of composers and artists, including Jon Kimura Parker. As a soloist, Beaver has appeared with dozens of orchestras worldwide, including the Montreal Symphony. He was a top prize-winner at the international violin competitions in Indianapolis, Montreal and won a silver medal at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium. Clive Greensmith was principal cellist of London's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra before setting out on a career as soloist and chamber musician. 3rd LMMC performance.

Notes

Opus 90 is the fourth and final piano trio in Dvořák’s catalogue. It is also the most popular of the four, owing partly to its subtitle, Dumky. A dumka (singular of dumky) can be simply defined as a folksong of Ukrainian origin, usually of melancholic, brooding character, derived from the genre of epic laments or ballads. The deeply reflective character may be offset by livelier passages. Unlike other works by Dvořák that incorporate dumky, the Opus 90 trio consists of nothing but dumky - six of them. The first three are played without pause. The fourth, fifth and sixth dumky each constitute a single movement. The trio was such a success at its first performance in Prague in April of 1891, that the musicians involved took the work on a forty-concert tour throughout Bohemia and Moravia.

Schubert composed his trio in B-flat during the summer of 1827, a little more than a year before his death. It and its companion work, the trio in E-flat Opus 100, reflect the composer’s study of similar works by Mozart and Beethoven in their refined compositional technique and equal partnership of three instruments. ‘A glance at Schubert’s trio, and all miserable human commotion vanishes and the world shines in new splendor,’ was Robert Schumann’s assessment of the B-flat trio. Most listeners today would concur, such is the music’s buoyant spirit, sense of confidence and sunny optimism, wealth of ravishingly beautiful melodies, and textural richness.

Robert Markow