Tchaikovsky: Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 50 'In Memory of a Great Artist'

The lyric charm of these two lamenting trios is all-encompassing of Romantic Russian chamber music, and is reflected in the empathy of the performances by this outstanding Russian trio. Glinka’s Trio was originally scored for clarinet, bassoon and piano, but—especially in Russia—the music is more often heard in this version. The original use of wind instruments may have led Glinka to encapsulate the work into four relatively brief movements; in any event, the Trio is beautifully composed and proportioned. It is prefaced in the score by a quotation in French which can be translated as ‘I have known love only through the unhappiness it causes’—the consequence of a series of unsuccessful love affairs.

Tchaikovsky’s heartbreak was the untimely death of Nikolai Rubinstein in 1881 aged only 45, and soon after he composed his only Piano Trio in his dear friend’s memory. Elegiac throughout reflecting markings in the score such as piangendo (weeping), both this trio and Glinka’s are perhaps musical manifestations of the saying: ‘When a Russian is sad, he is very sad: when a Russian is very sad, then he is at his very best.’

Smetana Trio: inimitable Dvorák and Tchaikovsky, played with passion and torrential expressivity

The Smetana Trio, comprising the magnificent Jitka Cechová on piano, Jana Vonášková’s tender and passionate violin, and the sturdy underpinning of Jan Pálenícek’s vibrant cello, are today considered one of the very finest ensembles of their ilk.

After previous recordings mapping the peaks of Czech trio composition, on this CD the ensemble round off the set of Dvorák’s trios and at the same time venture beyond the borders of the Czech repertoire.

Their Tchaikovsky, however, surprises with a naturalness and torrential expressivity akin to that which in the case of Dvorák’s Dumky and Piano Trio No. 3 in F minor earned enthusiastic reviews and accolades (BBC Music Magazine Award 2007).

Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A minor (one of the longest piano trios there is) was composed as a tribute to the recently decease Nikolai Rubinstein, and can be understood as the composer’s attempt at overcoming his personal antipathy to the sonic combination of piano with violin or cello. The Smetana Trio have grasped it with passion and apprehension of the “broad Slavonic soul”.

In March 1881 Tchaikovsky received the news of the death of his friend Nikolai Rubinstein whilst he was in Paris – a great blow for the composer who had been engaged to teach at the newly founded Moscow Conservatory, thanks to Rubinstein. Tchaikovsky decided to dedicate a piece of music to his late friend – not a classical work for choir or orchestra but one for piano trio. The memory of Rubinstein evidently enraptured him to the extent that he burst all dimensions with his Trio Op. 50. Two monumental movements make up a memorial work which, however, also has optimistic moments. Following an “Elegiac piece” is a set of variations with a duration of nearly 30 minutes which comprises a slow movement, scherzo and finale, all under the roof of a simple Russian theme. Technically, this trio presents a challenge to every piano trio.

The Swiss Piano Trio has won numerous prizes at international competitions, including the International Chamber Music Competition Caltanissetta in Italy and the Johannes Brahms Competition in Austria. Founded in 1998, the ensemble has a busy performing schedule and has played in over 40 countries on all continents.

The recording debut of the David Trio on Stradivarius, this young but already accomplished and esteemed Italian Trio plays two Russian chamber masterpieces which both express the need for mourning. Shostakovich dedicated the Trio No. 2 to the memory of his friend Ivan Sollertinskij.

As Riccardo Risaliti writes in the liner notes: “Perhaps it is the most elegiac of all, I would even say funereal, desperate, ironically macabre in its essential writing, Spartan, conceding little in sentimental expressive openings, strongly contrasting with the language of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. Shostakovich expressed with this work, still more than with others of the same depressed mood, not only the celebration of the funeral of the friend, but his personal condition of existence as an artist forced to work in a setting which was politically extremely dangerous and culturally suffocating”.

The Trio in A minor by Tchaikovsky is dedicated to the memory of Nikolai Rubinstein, the brother of Anton; he, too, was a famous pianist and composer. This is an exceptionally long work, even longer than Beethoven’s Archduke, and it is marked by the strong presence of the piano, which is called upon to perform in a completely non-chamber role. It is formed of only two movements, of generous length, and of a sort of third movement made up of the final variation, then the coda, of the second. The first movement (Pezzo elegiaco) is typified by a painful lyricism; the second (Tema con variazioni) consists of a theme performed by piano followed by 11 variations.

This newest project from Gidon Kremer is one of the events of the season: the great violinist in a new trio with two outstanding young musicians, Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili and Lithuanian cellist Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė, celebrated as two of the most gifted players of their generation. It features a pair of compositions bracketing the history of Russian chamber music - a revelatory account of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio, juxtaposed with Victor Kissine’s Zerkalo of 2009.

Tchaikovsky has not previously been heard on ECM. When Kremer and friends play the Trio for piano, violin and violoncello op. 50, composed in 1882, they wring the emotion from the music’s Russian soul, and simultaneously convey the sense that the music is both modern and timeless.

Kremer recorded the work live for another label some years ago, but he wanted to return to the music as an “elder statesman” and bring to it the knowledge and insights acquired along the way. The result is a landmark ECM album. The recording was made at Munich’s Church of the Ascension (Himmelfahrtskirche) with Manfred Eicher producing: ECM New Series sound at its most glorious. Cellist Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė has been a member of Kemerartica Baltica since 1997. In her native Lithuania she took masterclasses with Rostropovich and Tatjana Grindenko. Both Dirvanauskaitė and Khatia Buniatishvili appeared on Kremer’s recent Hymns and Prayers for ECM, where Buniatishvili, recent winner of a prestigious Borletti-Buitioni Trust Award, delivered an exceptional performance in the César Franck Piano Quintet.

A brand new recording of the outstanding Gould Trio (Lucy Gould - violin, Alice Neary - ʻcello, Benjamin Frith - piano) performing Tchaikovskyʼs Trio in A minor, Op.50 and Rachmaninovʼs Trio élégiaque No. 1 in G minor.

Tchaikovsky wrote comparatively little chamber music, yet his Piano Trio in A minor, op. 50, with its kaleidoscopic succession of moods, is probably the first important piano trio by a Russian composer This work is a big, ambitious piece in which the composer sets himself a multitude of challenges in what was for him a new medium.

The Trio did not take long to make its way into the repertoire, where it still stands as one of the supreme examples of the piano trio in the Romantic era.

Tchaikovskyʼs Trio, with its function as a memorial for Nikolai Rubinstein, seems to have initiated a Russian tradition of ʻelegiacʼ piano trios. The young Sergei Rachmaninov composed his first, the Trio élégiaque No. 1 in G minor, at white-hot speed between 18 and 21 January 1892. Not surprisingly, Rachmaninov assigns pride of place to the piano, making the Trio almost a miniature piano concerto.

It opens with murmuring, wind-blown string figures, creating an evocative background to the pianoʼs dolorous main theme, soon taken up by the strings. In similarity to the Tchaikovsky, the work concludes with an impressively gloomy funeral march.