In Geneva, the Ernest Trio refreshes chamber music

His name, concise and intriguing, has been making headlines in the specialized press for several months now. It bounces back with as much brilliance among these music-loving circles who have seen and heard the young entity at work, on stage or recorded in a luminous first album. THE Ernest Trioa Franco-Swiss group established in Geneva, is undoubtedly the sensation of the moment, in our latitudes and elsewhere.

She made a name for herself, first of all, through a recording dedicated to Haydn and a few other complicit figures – “Haydn All-Stars”. Prestigious magazines (“Gramophone“, “Tuning fork»…), just as radio broadcasts praised this nugget published last January. There were also, in this meteoric rise, concerts which dared to renew forms and sometimes mix disciplines, a distinctive feature which ended up establishing the status of the three accomplices.

Enlighten female composers

This resounding observation will be repeated on June 14 in the Bartholoni Room of the Conservatory, during an anticipated concert. The opportunity, for the pianist of the trio, Natasha Roque Alcina, to reconnect with an old acquaintance, the violinist Clemence de Forceville, also invited to the event. “We have known each other since our childhood and we traveled in parallel in Paris during part of our training. For a while, we formed a duo. Then, our paths separated, before coming together again, when she was appointed to the position of first concertmaster within theLausanne Chamber Orchestra.”

The evening’s program partly reveals the musicians’ inclinations and aspirations. We can sense a strong taste for a certain Eastern European tradition, with Janacek’s “Sonata for violin and piano”, Dvorák’s “Bagatelles op.47” and Ravel’s “Tzigane”. We will especially come across a name little known to the general public, that of Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944), of which we will listen to the “Trio Nr.2 in A minor”.

With this figure, whom Bizet nicknamed “my little Mozart”, the group intends to extend its spotlight on the works of female composers who have remained in limbo for too long, permanently ignored by performers. “In this territory, there are of course more well-known and celebrated figures. We can think, for example, of Fanny Mendelssohn or Clara Schumann, notes cellist Clément Dami. But there are so many works to be cleared and we contribute to this by programming a piece at each concert that must be rediscovered.”

Getting off the beaten track as much as possible, without denying the universal repertoire, is the postulate of the three musicians. The curious name they gave themselves relates somewhat to this bivalent position. But who is Ernest? A close relative? A pet deserving of a tribute? Nothing of the sort. “We wanted to get away from any musical references,” explains Clément Dami. We then turned to a play by Oscar Wilde that we particularly like, “The importance of being Consistent», in which there is this line: “The only really safe name is Ernest”. That’s it, we said to ourselves that we weren’t risking anything by calling ourselves that.”

Violinist Stanislas Gosset sees in the Irish author the figure who embodied the state of mind of the trio in his time. “He was iconoclastic, sparkling, modern and committed: he corresponds in every way to the way in which we intend to invest music.” The adoption of the name in 2019, during the first steps of the small ensemble, cements and formalizes a common love for chamber music.

Clément Dami and Stanislas Gosset had been fans for several years already, while they frequented the Geneva High School of Music. For the first, this territory has always been obvious. For the second, there was the meeting with the violinist, conductor and teacher Gábor Takács-Nagywho gave rise to a solid vocation during his years of study.

Austrian birth

The duo will become a trio in Austria: Natasha Roque Alcine will one day cross paths with the cellist and the violinist during a master class followed in the neighboring country. The affinities emerge immediately, on an artistic level and on others too: “Later, we got married, Stanislas and I,” reveals the pianist, with a knowing smile.

Haydn was the first link, the crest of the recording project which has earned so much praise. “We owe its rediscovery to our teacher Patrick Jüdt,” notes the pianist. During the two years we spent at the University of the Arts in Bern, he led us to approach it according to a historically informed rhetoric. With him, the freshness and modernity of the composer seemed so obvious to us.”

Long months of work, of slow maturation, made it possible to reach the last level, to present a project to the very renowned record company Aside. The published CD keeps in all its folds the imprint of the three musicians. From texts to photos, from post-production to packaging, the Ernest Trio has thought of almost everything.

“One day,” says the pianist, “I woke up with France Music and our Haydn was on the air.” It was time for a first coronation.

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Rocco Zacheo joined the editorial staff of the Tribune de Genève in 2013; he deals with classical music and opera and devotes himself, on an ad hoc basis, to literary news and disparate cultural events. Previously, he worked for nine years at the newspaper Le Temps and worked with RTS La Première. More informations

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