{TABLE} String Trio. Op 45 (1946).......................... Schoenberg Serenade for String Trio, Op 10 (1902)............. Dohnanyi {/TABLE} SCHOENBERG is said to shave given expression, in his String Trio, to various details of a life-threatening illness in which the heart stopped beating. A high note in the violin part indicates the moment when an injection was made into the heart so that it would pulse again. So great is the nervous energy of the work, its extraordinary sense of continuity in discontinuity, that the story rings true. Three weeks later, aged 72, he wrote this astonishing outburst, which seems to make direct contact with the listener's nervous system.
The Hibernia String Trio played it with the passionate intensity of youth so that its somewhat disjunct ebb and flow united to make a profoundly life-affirming statement. The very difficulties of the piece were further evidence of risks taken and dangers surmounted.
The emotional charge of Dohnanyi's Serenade is negligible in comparison: it was a good-humoured contribution to the May holiday. The players delighted in its rich orchestration and tuneful lines, never letting its infectious vigour lapse into the merely pretty.
It was another memorable day in the Lane Gallery.