With light-hearted ease, Chimaera Trio immerse themselves in a fairytale world of goblins, elves, ghosts and mythical creatures. Reflecting much more than just intimate friendships and family ties, these trios by Mendelssohn, his close friend and esteemed colleague Niels Wilhelm Gade and his brother-in-law Emil Hartmann expand into an almost infinite cosmos of Nordic-romantic myths and legends in which everything is interwoven with everything else.
Mendelssohn's Trio Op. 49 begins with a virtuosic struggle between a darkly passionate main theme and an optimistic, upwardly-striving theme. This turbulence is later transformed into a classically Mendelssohnian scherzando elf-dance with clever contrapuntal and rhythmic playfulness. A weeping and intense finale concludes this trio of symphonic proportions.
In Gade's Novelletten, each movement tells a different story, as the title "little novels" suggests - from eerie scherzandos and robust marches to intense cavatinas. Both trios by Mendelssohn and Gade have been arranged especially for Chimaera Trio by their pianist, Laurens De Man.
Using references and quotations, Hartmann pays homage to three central figures of German Romanticism with Serenade Op. 24: Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Schumann. The three parts are entitled Idyll, Romance, and Rondo and evoke memories of things experienced, heard and imagined. Chimaera Trio create a special colour palette by merging sounds of the clarinet, cello and piano.
