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Tag: Piano Trio No. 2

Shostakovich Plays Shostakovich

As I mentioned last week, Dmitri Shostakovich was a fabulous pianist, who began serious studies at the age of 9. He continued, formally, at the Petrograd Conservatory, upon his acceptance there, at the age of 13. Once he began to receive international attention for his original compositions, for works such as his Symphony No. 1, written when he was only 19, his principal focus began to shift. He did, however, continue to perform and record his own music.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll revisit a 5-CD set, “Shostakovich Plays Shostakovich,” issued on the Melodiya label, made up of Russian state recordings set down largely between 1946 and 1958, with the composer himself at the piano.

The documents in this box are riveting, not only for the musicianship they document, but also because of their biographical fascination and their sense of history.

By way of example, we’ll hear a harrowing account of the Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor. Given its premiere only months after the liberation of Leningrad, the trio predates Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8. Both share in common a kind of inexorable, klezmer-inflected danse macabre. Shostakovich always felt a special kinship with the Jewish people. Furthermore, the trio is dedicated to his friend, Ivan Sollertinsky, artistic director of the Leningrad Philharmonic, who was an enthusiast of the music of Gustav Mahler. Sollertinsky died of a heart attack in Siberia, following his evacuation during the Siege of Leningrad.

In 1947, Shostakovich sat down in front of the microphones to record the work, with violinist David Oistrakh and cellist Miloš Sádlo.

On a lighter note, “Children’s Notebook” is a collection of trifles (March, Waltz, Sad Tale, Merry Tale, The Bear, The Clockwork Doll, and Birthday). However, they certainly take on added interest when introduced by the composer, as they will be tonight.

The hour will open with the Concertino for Two Pianos – performed by Shostakovich and his son, Maxim – and conclude with the Piano Concerto No. 2, written for Maxim’s 19th birthday. Maxim introduced the concerto at his graduation from the Moscow Conservatory. Here, Shostakovich himself performs at the conservatory’s Grand Hall, at fever pitch, with the Moscow Radio Symphony conducted by Alexander Gauk.

In America, artists play with authority. In Soviet Russia, authorities play with you!

Shostakovich gets all keyed up, on “Black and White and Red Redux,” four more recordings with the composer at the keyboard, this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

In case you missed it, here’s a link to Part One, “Black and White and Red All Over,” posted as a webcast:

https://www.wwfm.org/webcasts/2020-01-30/the-lost-chord-february-2-black-and-white-and-red-all-over

January 29, 2023
Shostakovich’s Misery Marlboro’s Joy

Dmitri? DMITRI! Pull yourself together. Don’t look so miserable.

This week on “Music from Marlboro,” we’ll be featuring your Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor. Sure, it’s dedicated to Ivan Sollertinsky, a close friend of yours who died an untimely death, and it was given its premiere in Leningrad in 1944, not the cheeriest place in the months following a years-long siege that killed probably a million and a half people, maybe two, created subhuman conditions, and instilled unfathomable desperation in the populace.

This is the piece that lent your String Quartet No. 8 its inexorable, klezmer-influenced “danse macabre.” After all, among Sollertinsky’s many other talents and enthusiasms – as a musicologist, a critic, a linguist, a professor, and the artistic director of the Leningrad Philharmonic – he was an ardent enthusiast of the music of Gustav Mahler. Sollertinsky had been evacuated during the siege. Unfortunately, he died suddenly of a heart attack in Siberia at the age of 41.

With Sollertinsky’s death, the barricades of misery were shattered, and you mourned as only you could. It’s not exactly uplifting music, but boy does it make an impression.

We’ll hear it performed at the 2011 Marlboro Music Festival by pianist Bruno Canino, violinist Ying Fu, and cellist Matthew Zalkind.

Then Alexander Glazunov – representative of an earlier generation, oblivious, and perhaps not entirely sober – will clear the air with his String Quintet in A major. Glazunov knew you well, did he not? As director of the Petrograd Conservatory, he saw to it that you were allowed to bypass preparatory theoretical courses and enter directly into the conservatory’s composition program.

What a nice guy! Too bad you were lukewarm on his music. But you did have kind things to say about the man, and even opined that his scherzos weren’t too bad.

Glazunov’s quintet is full of serene lyricism, generously melodic and quite beautiful. Then again, Glazunov never had to worry about Nazis and probably never had to eat anyone to survive. We’ll hear it performed at Marlboro in 1982, with violinists Sylvie Gazeau and Ernestine Schor, violist Toby Hoffman, and one-and-future cellists of the Guarneri Quartet, David Soyer and Peter Wiley.

That’s a dazed piano trio, with a glaze of Glazunov, on the next “Music from Marlboro,” this Wednesday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

RAINY DAY ACTIVITY: Post your most miserable photo of Shostakovich in the comments section below.

Marlboro School of Music and Festival: Official Page

PHOTOS: Sollertinsky (upper left) and the many moods of Shostakovich

June 5, 2019
Celebrating Serkin A Marlboro Music Birthday

This week on “Music from Marlboro,” we’ll serve up a great big musical cake for Rudolf Serkin’s birthday.

Serkin, one of the indisputably great pianists of the 20th century, co-founded, with Adolf and Hermann Busch, and Marcel, Blanche, and Louis Moyse, the Marlboro Music School and Festival in 1951. Above and beyond his own artistic achievements, Serkin inspired countless young musicians, both as a pedagogue at – and then director of – the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and as artistic director of the Marlboro Music Festival for 40 years, until his death in 1991.

We’ll supplement that cake with a little sherbet – better make that Schubert – and a special recording of the Piano Trio No. 2 in E-flat major, op. 100, set down in Brattleboro, VT, right at the very beginning, in October of 1951, with Serkin and the Brothers Busch. This is music-making between friends – and relatives – of the highest caliber.

Then we’ll enjoy an additional treat in the form of Schubert’s “Auf dem Strom” (“On the River”). Serkin will join Philadelphia-based soprano Benita Valente and hornist Myron Bloom for a performance of this work that was composed in tribute to Beethoven. Ludwig Rellstab’s text was originally intended for the older master. The song was first performed on the only concert devoted exclusively to Schubert’s music during Schubert’s lifetime, which took place on the first anniversary of Beethoven’s death, March 26, 1828. The Marlboro performance dates from 1960.

I hope you’ll join me in celebrating Rudolf Serkin, on the anniversary of his birth, with an all-Schubert program, this Wednesday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

Marlboro School of Music and Festival: Official Page

PHOTO: Serkin (center) with his Marlboro family, co-founders Marcel Moyse, Louis Moyse, Blanche Moyse, Adolf Busch, and Hermann Busch (with cellist Nathan Chaikin second from left)

March 28, 2018

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