05 Feb 2016 | Gramophone | by Jeremy Nicholas
Tchaikovsky: Piano Trio in A minor
Jeremy Nicholas talks to Trio Con Brio Copenhagen about one of the finest of all piano trios
‘Personally I think it is one of the greatest pieces for this combination because of both the scope and the content.’ So says Jens Elvekjaer, pianist of the Trio Con Brio Copenhagen. Many would agree while admitting the irony of the composer resolutely refusing to write for the genre. ‘Forgive me, dear friend,’ he wrote to his patroness Nadezhda von Meck in November 1880. ‘I would do anything to give you pleasure, but this is beyond me…I simply cannot endure the combination of piano with violin or cello. To my mind the timbre of these instruments will not blend.’ It’s a refusal that’s all the more puzzling because the second movement of the Piano Concerto No 2, completed only a few months earlier, is essentially a piano trio.
The Second Piano Concerto was, significantly, dedicated to Nikolai Rubinstein. Before he could premiere the work – and just four months after Tchaikovsky’s letter to Mme von Meck – Rubinstein died. Despite periods of estrangement, the loss to Tchaikovsky of his teacher, mentor and longtime friend left him bereft. It is against this background that the Piano Trio in A minor, Op 50 was conceived and composed. Completed in January 1882, Tchaikovsky dedicated the work ‘In Memory of a Great Artist’.
The Copenhagen Trio started playing the work in 2004. Since then they reckon to have performed it nearly 100 times. ‘It’s a milestone of the repertoire, one of a kind,’ says Soo-Kyung Hong, the South Korean cellist, wife of Jens Elvekjaer and sister of the Trio’s violinist Soo-Jin Hong. ‘Yes,’ agrees Elvekjaer. ‘And it’s also interesting to see the influence the Tchaikovsky Trio has had on succeeding generations of Russian composers like Rachmaninov and Shostakovich. I think it was the first piano trio to have this form.’ …
(Photo Bernhard Güttler)