New Classical Tracks: After a Dream

Lysander Piano Trio - After a Dream

They like Mendelssohn. They love Shakespeare. And they liked the sound of it.

And that's how the members of Lysander Piano Trio chose their name — from a character in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (for which Mendelssohn wrote incidental music).

After a Dream is the title of the debut release from the trio, which is made up of three friends who met in the corridor at the Juilliard School of Music: pianist Lisa Stepanova, violinist Itamar Zorman and cellist Michael Katz.

Michael says the centerpiece of After a Dream is Maurice Ravel's only piano trio. "We knew from the beginning the Ravel would be the featured piece on the CD," he says. "So when we were picking the program, we decided instead of picking one or two larger works, to pick smaller pieces that complement Ravel well. And we went with the idea of music that expresses this idea of fantasy — nocturnes and dream and reality. So there's a lot of different colors and a lot of fantasy."

Ravel composed his trio in the summer of 1914 while vacationing at his favorite seaside town in the Basque region near the Spanish border. Lisa says Ravel incorporated some of what he experienced there directly into this trio. "The first movement, which is the most substantial, begins in a very gentle way but with a rhythm that people trace back to Basque traditions," she explains. "There's a suspended feeling and that gives the movement a dreamy quality. There are eruptions and climaxes, typical of Ravel, then it subsides and it's back to dreamy. Lots of tempo changes in the first movement and every member in the group has to negotiate these tempos.

"The third movement is a passacaglia … where a theme keeps recurring. It's a Baroque form, a very strict form, and it's interesting that Ravel chose this form for this movement. Perhaps it's because right before World War I, composers in France — [including] Debussy — were looking at their old French heritage. Perhaps that was on his mind when he composed this impressive movement that is an homage to tradition.

"The third and fourth movements continue without a break. The theme in the piano is a pentatonic scale, so it evokes something of the Asian culture — though nothing specific as far as we know. Just something from foreign lands, foreign shores. And again, it's exciting, it's beautiful, it's transparent, it grows to huge climaxes, bigger than anything that came before. [Ravel] pulls out all the stops with glissandi and tremolos and instruments and beautiful writing. And a satisfying conclusion, an optimistic one, actually. If the third movement is full of darkness, the last movement is full of light."

After a Dream opens with Joaquin Turina's "The Circle," a beautiful halo of sound. Michael thinks that of all the pieces on this recording, this one really complements Ravel's trio.

"It shares a lot of the sounds that Ravel has in his music," Michael explains. "There are close cultural connections. A lot of Ravel's pieces have a so-called Spanish feel and there's something about Turina that's truly magical, a sunrise and sunset, this magical feeling. In a sense you get a full range of positive emotions that you experience in a single day."

Israeli composer Moshe Zorman, the father of the trio's violinist Itamar Zorman, wrote the final piece on this recording. Michael shares the idea behind "Yemenite Fantasy."

"The story that Itamar told us is that his father met a Yemenite woman who sang and danced. One of the tunes he heard her sing really mesmerized him," Michael recounts. "He found something about it touching and personal and decided to take that tune and write a piece around it. There's something rhythmic and exotic about his music. He really has a special talent of capturing energy and exuberance of Middle Eastern music."

The Lysander Trio is a young, exuberant ensemble that will capture your attention, and your imagination, with their debut release, After a Dream.

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