Piano Trio

This version of the Tchaikovsky measures up extremely well against its competition; moreover it is (like all chamber recordings from this source) very well balanced. Pianist Stefan Mendl is able to dominate yet become a full member of the partnership throughout. The second movement's variations open gently but soon develop the widest range of style, moving through Tchaikovsky's kaleidoscopic mood-changes like quicksilver and often with elegiac lyrical feeling.

In the face of change, memory becomes precious. This is especially true for Maurice Ravel whose important source of creativity lies in evoking the memories of music from the past. In Ravel’s hand, these memories are delicately suspended between decadence and invention, between nostalgia and progressiveness. Such memories reside in the body, in the form of half-forgotten dances, to be simultaneously recalled and reinvented.

The Geneva Piano Trio was founded by three international awarded musicians, established in Switzerland. Sharing Russian origin and having lived in Geneva for twenty years, they paid tribute to their welcoming city by naming their musical ensemble The Geneva Piano Trio. The recording was done in the famous music room of a Swiss town of La Chaux-de-Fonds (a UNESCO World Heritage site), holding a revolutionary Dolby Atmos technology. For this first CD, the musicians choose to celebrate their cultural roots with trios of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov.