Tchaikovsky - Piano Trio [Golub/Kaplan/Carr Trio]The Golub/Kaplan/Carr Trio was formed in 1982, and was disbanded i take it at the death of the Pianist David Golub in 2000, Golub and Kaplan are Americans, and Carr is English, they have made a number of recordings for the Arabesque label, this is one of their finest, recorded in 1994.
Tchaikovsky's Trio is a work of real passion, especially for the Pianist, it has strong powerful chords, almost a Requiem for Piano Trio [for Rubinstein], it's in a minor key, and sounds like a lament at times, certainly it has tragic elements to it, but it's also endlessly fascinating, the crux of the work is a bunch of variations, and Tchaikovsky pulls out all the stops in creating a tremendous variety, all three instruments get a chance to show off.
Of course i enjoyed the variations, especially variations 1 & 5-6, these two middle variations are called 'The Musical Box' and the 'Waltz', 'The Musical Box' of course is self explanatory, the piano plays chiming sounds high in the treble, while violin and cello give a soft drone, short but very effective [4:23-4:46], there seems to be a linking passage to the 'Waltz' by the cello, as it stutters the beginnings of the waltz [4:47-5:00], and the cello takes up the waltz first, and the others join in later [5:01-7:22], it really gets passionate at some points, you'll always find some variation to satisfy whatever mood you're in, or to create a mood.
Here's the first part of the variations played on YouTube, variation 5 starts at 4:39, and variation 6 at 5:27.
