Tchaikovsky - Piano Trio [The Moscow Rachmaninov Trio]
The Moscow Rachmaninov Trio are new to me, they have been around for 15 years, and like any professional trio that work together, they get really good, their understanding can get telepathic, so a great thumbs up to them.
Isn't the booklet cover on this disc just magic?, it's a painting by Nikolai Alexandrovich Sergeyev, called The Secret Garden, looks like at dusk/twilight, deep in an overgrown garden, a lake with half lights shrouded in green mystery, the highlights on the lake dazzle, this is how front cover booklets should be.
On to the music!, Tchaikovsky was loath to write in the Piano Trio genre, but what he produced here is a masterpiece, and a clever structure too, a sort of Requiem to the memory of Rubinstein, it has virtuoso piano writing, and is in a sad minor key, on this disc the individual variations are not cued, so it's harder to find a favourite variation, but that's a small complaint.
The variations have an abundant wealth of invention, Tchaikovsky explores almost every avenue of how to present this same tune in very different ways, and i enjoyed this sheer variety today, i really liked variation 3 the most today [2:41-3:33 on track 6], a rolling Piano tune, while the Cello and Violin pizzicato the beat, very memorable.
Here's Lang Lang, Vadim Repin, and Mischa Maisky playing the opening variations on YouTube, the third variation is from 1:28 to 2:14.
