Tchaikovsky Snittke Vadim Gluzman

In Russian chamber music, a rather special tradition evolved around the piano trio, with a number of composers turning to the genre to write ‘instrumental requiems’. First out was Tchaikovskywith his Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 50, ‘à la mémoired’un grand artiste’, and he was followed by composers such as Rachmaninov, Arenskyand Shostakovich. In the case of Tchaikovsky’s trio, the ‘grand artiste’ was the pianist Nikolai Rubinstein, and Tchaikovsky chose the trio genre as he felt that a piece for solo piano would be too lightweight and one with orchestral accompaniment would be too showy. The work is in two movements, a Pezzoelegiaco(‘elegiac piece’) and a set of variations, and it begins with the cello playing a moving lament which sets the tone for the entire first movement. The theme returns at the end of the second movement in the form of an impassioned funeral march.

Sergei Prokofiev first noted down some ideas for his Violin Sonata No.1 in the summer of 1938 and he began the composition that winter. It was later put aside, but when he was evacuated from Moscow after the Nazi invasion 1941, the unfinished violin sonata was one of the pieces Prokofiev took with him. It wasn't until 1946 that he completed the work, however, following it up with the equally dark Sixth Symphony. There is no doubt that it was bitter experience that made these works two of Prokofiev's most powerfully concentrated compositions.

Nathan Milstein once described Sergei Prokofievs first violin concerto as: indeed one of the best modern violin concertos a brilliant piece, perhaps the finest of all Prokofievs works, while the second concerto was taken up by violinists such as David Oistrakh and Jascha Heifetz. Here the two works are interpreted by the Ukrainian-born Vadim Gluzman, who as many critics have remarked is firmly based in the glorious tradition of these and other virtuosos of the 19th and 20th centuries.

After acclaimed recordings of the great Romantic violin concertos by Brahms, Bruch and Tchaikovsky, Vadim Gluzman takes on the work that in the beginning of the 19th century mapped out a new course for the genre: Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61.