Ravel & Saint-Saens: Piano Trios

Sitkovetsky Trio

Ravel & Saint-Saens: Piano Trios
Format
Audio
Published
2 July 2021
ISBN
7318599922195

Ravel & Saint-Saens: Piano Trios

Sitkovetsky Trio

In 1892, when Camille Saint-Saëns started on his Piano Trio No. 2, almost 30 years had passed since his first, widely celebrated work in the genre, his Op. 18. In the meantime the composer had come to be regarded as hopelessly old-fashioned by many of his colleagues. In writing the trio, Saint-Saëns remained true to his principles as a composer, striving for balance and clarity and avoiding the chromaticism that had become so prevalent in the wake of Wagner. It is nevertheless an unexpectedly personal work, cast, in the unusual form of a symmetrical arch in five parts: two substantial and dramatic Allegros frame three shorter movements, without a proper scherzo or a true slow movement.

Some 20 years later, shortly before the outbreak of World War I, Maurice Ravel set about composing his own piano trio, in spite of his conviction that the percussive sound of the piano and the sustained singing of the string instruments were fundamentally incompatible. According to Ravel, only Saint-Saëns - who he admired greatly - had managed to solve this problem. If Saint-Saëns was an inspiration to Ravel when composing his Piano Trio in A minor, there were also other influences: the work was written during a stay in the Basque country where Ravel was born and the theme that opens the first movement displays what he himself called ‘a Basque colour’, employing the characteristic rhythms of the zortziko.

The two works are here performed by the Sitkovetsky Trio, who have previously won great acclaim for their recordings of Mendelssohn, Beethoven and Dvořák.

Review

Ravel was a sophisticated composer who was exacting and worked towards compositional perfection, which is beautifully evident in this Piano Trio in A minor. However, he was also described as childlike and the bubbly notes of the second movement immediately evoked the picture of him playing on the floor with his friend’s children, something he did once when he was too shy to talk to the adults. This work really feels like a distilled version of Ravel’s style, with the strings as the soul and the piano tying it all together.

Meanwhile Saint-Saëns was working towards something more nefarious. ‘I am working quietly away at a trio which I hope will drive to despair all those unlucky enough to hear it. I shall need the whole summer to perpetrate this atrocity, one must have a little fun somehow.’ While he joked about this trio, he took the composing of it very seriously. It was considered hopelessly outdated to be doing such a ‘traditional’ or ‘German’ composition but Saint-Saëns stuck to his principles. Luckily, he did, as this is a stunning work. The Sitkovetsky Trio brings an almost orchestral depth of sound to this recording, and it’s another feather in their cap to add to their slew of beautiful albums.


Kate Rockstrom is a friend of Readings.

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