Paul Graener was a German-born British citizen (music director of the Haymarket theater) who returned to his native land to participate fully and enthusiastically in the Nazi musical establishment. He had the good sense to drop dead in 1944, aged 72, from whence his music fell into an oblivion it’s a pity he didn’t live to experience. The problem is, his music doesn’t deserve it: he wrote really good stuff–conservative to be sure, but full of invention and originally structured. From this vantage point there can be no justification for its continued neglect.
All of the works on this excellently played and recorded disc are piano trios. The Suite is a charming miniature in three short movements; the finale is irresistibly catchy. Kammermusikdichtung is, as the name implies, a tone poem for piano trio, in a single movement lasting about 20 minutes. The German late-romantic idiom may not be original, but the form and concept are. This bold, serious piece would grace any chamber music program, as would the Piano Trio.
Graener’s unabashedly melodic style comes to the fore in Theodor-Storm-Musik, a brief trio with a vocal component. It really is a tribute to Graener’s gift for composition that he was able to create such distinctive works in a style and medium that, in the first decades of the 20th century, might be described as somewhat shopworn. If you’re interested in some really fine, totally unknown chamber music, then the Hyperion-Trio’s warm and enthusiastic performances offer an ideal opportunity.
