At the concert on November 27 the Sitkovetsky Trio, consisting of Alexander Sitkovetsky (violin), Isang Enders (cello) and Wu Qian (piano), is to play the three-movement Piano Trio No 2 in A minor, written in 1887 by the French lady composer Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944), the 1914 Piano Trio in A minor by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) and the Piano Trio No 2 in E minor by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), written in 1943-44 in memory of the composer’s recently-deceased friend Ivan Sollertinsky. The final movement of the four, the ‘Dance of Death’, is notable for its use of Jewish scales.
The Wikipedia article on the Ravel Piano Trio has some things to say that are relevant to all music written for violin, cello and piano: ‘In composing the Trio, Ravel was aware of the compositional difficulties posed by the genre: how to reconcile the contrasting sonorities of the piano and the string instruments, and how to achieve balance between the three instrumental voices – in particular, how to make that of the cello stand out from the others, which are more easily heard.’ This concert will therefore showcase the different approaches taken by each composer to the challenges that all works written for this combination of instruments need to overcome.
The Sitkovetsky Trio, formed in 2007 and made up of former students at the Yehudi Menuhin School, is one of the outstanding trios of today, having recently received BBC Music Magazine’s Chamber Music Award.
Issue 66, December 2023
Turkey’s Centenary Issue
