Trio Kobalt
Rachmaninov: Piano Trios Nos. 1 & 2
Sergei Rachmaninov: Piano Trios Nos. 1 & 2 brings into focus two works in which the piano is the dramatic axis rather than mere support. The First Trio, cast as a single movement, converses with the Pezzo elegiaco from Tchaikovskys Trio op. 50 and allows a retrograde hint of the opening call from the Concerto op. 23. The Second Trio is born from mourning for Tchaikovsky and reprises the dedication to the memory of a great artist: a monumental span poised between sonata form, an extended theme and variations, and a cyclical close. Revised repeatedly by the composer, the score is heard in the late 1917 version, with repeats marked ad libitum omitted for continuity. In both, the elegiac-funereal mode feeds on the oscillation between major and minor, a theatre of successive shadows.