Brahms Trio

Brahms Trio – History of the Russian Piano Trio, Vol. 5 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:17:34 minutes | 693 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Naxos

This album concludes The Brahms Trio’s five-volume survey of the piano trio in Russia with remarkable works by composers whose names have all but disappeared from the musical world’s collective memory. Vladimir Dyck, a student of Widor at the Paris Conservatoire, took French nationality in 1910 but his life came to a tragic end when he and his family were arrested in 1943 and sent to Auschwitz. His Piano Trio, Op. 25 contrasts Russian soulfulness with the lightness and deft scoring he brought to his film compositions. Constantin von Sternberg’s genial Op.104 reflects his career as a virtuoso pianist, while Sergey Youferov’s expansive and nostalgic Op.52 is a farewell to the Russian “Silver Age”, a world about to be destroyed by revolution.
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Brahms Trio – History of the Russian Piano Trio, Vol. 4 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:08:52 minutes | 622 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Naxos

Both Anton Arensky and Sergey Taneyev belong to the generation of Russian composers who came to prominence at the end of the 19th century, midway between Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. With its expansive themes and wonderfully elegiac mood, Arensky’s Piano Trio No. 1 is dedicated to the memory of cellist Karl Davydov. The subtle use of counterpoint in Taneyev’s Piano Trio in D major reveals his expertise in combining earlier techniques with the emphatically Romantic style that both composers inherited from Tchaikovsky. These two masterpieces summarize the development of the piano trio genre in Russian music of the 19thcentury, and subsequently laid the foundations for its further evolution.
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Brahms Trio – History of the Russian Piano Trio, Vol. 3 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:08:55 minutes | 1,02 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Naxos

Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov’s influence as composer and teacher was profound in Russia and beyond, yet his chamber music has been overshadowed by his operas and orchestral works. The unfinished Piano Trio in C minor was completed by his son-in-law Maximilian Steinberg to reveal a substantial work of considerable depth. César Cui’s charming and lyrical Farniente is an arrangement from a piano original, while Borodin’s Piano Trio in D major is reminiscent of Mendelssohn in its joyous agility and nostalgic beauty.
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Brahms Trio – History of the Russian Piano Trio, Vol. 2 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:13:23 minutes | 670 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Naxos

The Russian piano trio reached its apogee with Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A minor, dedicated to the memory of Nikolay Rubinstein. A monumental piece in the repertoire, it is cast in only two movements, and was played at Tchaikovsky’s own memorial concert two years after its composition. Paul Pabst’s Piano Trio in A major is less well known. Composed in memory of Nikolay Rubinstein’s brother, Anton, it is a work of exceptional virtuosity and flowing lyricism, with unpredictable harmonies, a delightful Intermezzo and a tour de force of a Finale.
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Brahms Trio – History of the Russian Piano Trio, Vol. 1 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:15:56 minutes | 1,13 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Naxos

The piano trio holds an important place in the history of Russian chamber music and to follow the development of the genre is to accompany the fascinating history of Russian music in the 19th century. Its beginnings can be found with Alexander Alyabiev, a student of John Field, whose unfinished but elegant and vivacious Piano Trio in E-flat Major is paired with the yearning Romanticism of the Piano Trio in A Minor. Mikhail Glinka’s Trio pathétique bears the inscription ‘I have only known love through the sorrow it causes!’, while Anton Rubinstein’s elaborately acrobatic piano writing in his Piano Trio in G Minor reminds us of his own virtuosity, and reveals his magnificent skills as a melodist.
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