Content area
Full Text
The old Russian Empire imported many musicians, but from the late eighteenth century it was producing its own composers of chamber music, such as Ivan Khandoshkin (1747-1804) and Dmitri Bortniansky (1751-1825). It was in the nineteenth century, however, that Russian chamber music as we know it began to flower.
An important new series of recordings, featuring the outstanding players of the Brahms Trio of Moscow, seeks to chart that progress through the prism of the piano trio medium. As many of the composers were superb pianists, this idea makes sense; and listening to a recording can be a satisfying way of encountering works rarely, if ever, heard in the concert hall. Fifteen compact discs are planned, in three instalments, and the first tranche has now been issued by Naxos.
The artists begin, plausibly enough, with the John Field pupil Alexander Aliabiev (1787-1851), best known for his song The Nightingale. His melodious chamber music received a fair amount of attention from Emil Gilels and the Beethoven Quartet, who in the 1940s and 1950s recorded the E flat Piano Quintet, A minor Piano Trio, E minor Violin Sonata and two string quartets. The Brahms Trio begin with his unfinished E flat Trio - an edition of the one surviving movement, made by Boris Dobrokhotov. We are not far here from the world of Mozart and early Beethoven, with Romanticism just rearing its head. The performance is lyrical and very lovely. The A minor Trio of 1820, in three movements, begins its Allegro ma non troppo lyrically, almost tentatively, and the second theme is especially memorable - the piano part is quite florid. The delectable Adagio is somewhat brief but blooms beautifully. The Rondo has an unmistakable folk-like cast of countenance: one thinks of Mozart's finales in popular style, also Beethoven's, extending as late as the Archduke Trio. A music-boxlike episode highlights the piano but in general this finale is a chance for all three players to kick up their heels. Aliabiev could write dramatically, as in his 1834 Violin Sonata, but the trios are agreeable pieces suitable for salon or concert hall.
Of course Mikhail Glinka (1804-57) should be present, and he did write a piano trio, but it was for clarinet and bassoon. Fortunately the violin...