program - SVIZ

conceived as a rondo in three-eight time. It begins humorously with the bassoon’s
leaping octaves, above which develops a distinctive tune. The feature
of the movement is the central section, which the composer conceived as a
sequence of cadenzas for all of the instruments, interrupted by the familiar
octaves in the bassoon. The lightness and smoothness of the work leave us
speechless: Russian composers did actually know how to write chamber music.
The latter is even more clearly confirmed by the opus of Dmitri Shostakovich,
although today he is also primarily known for his extraordinary set of fifteen
symphonies. Shostakovich’s favourable disposition towards chamber music
can first be attributed to the fact that for a long time he himself considered a
career as a pianist, and later frequently participated in chamber ensembles
as a pianist. At the same time, the more intimate focus of chamber music
offered the composer an opportunity for a deeper personal expression that
was not necessarily connected with the dictates of social realism.
Shostakovich wrote the Second Piano Trio in E Minor in 1944. The reason for
its emergence can be found in the unexpected death of the composer’s friend,
musicologist Ivan Solertinsky, with whom he had established a friendship in
1927. The broad minded Solertinsky had written the first Russian monograph
about Mahler, and had also infected Shostakovich with a love for the great
late romantic, as is most clearly evident in the composer’s Fourth Symphony.
The Trio can be placed alongside other commemorative works composed
in this period: the Eighth Symphony was conceived as an homage to the
victims of the Second World War, and the Second Piano Sonata was written
in memory of Shostakovich’s piano teacher, Nikolayev.
The Trio commences with the mysterious sound of cello harmonics and muted
violin. In the continuation, however, this fragile opening grows into a robust
musical expression of symphonic dimensions. A wild Scherzo does not bring
any real relief, but is instead full of numerous contrasts: in the trio the rural
dance gives way to an apparently more tranquil waltz. The Largo is constructed
on the basis of eight dark chorale chords in the lower register of the
piano, which dominate the entire movement in the form of a passacaglia.
Above them the strings develop mournful music that offers an explicit allusion
to the music of Mahler. The finale is again relentless, conceived as a kind of
dance of death. In it Shostakovich repeats the two central themes from the
first movement and the slow movement, while new material is provided by
elements of Jewish music, something that has a clear symbolic meaning in
the composer’s opus: it is music of the oppressed. Of course, Shostakovich
uses this symbol primarily because it is rather easy to interpret: on the one
hand, it can symbolise the suffering during the holocaust of the Second
World War, while, on the other hand, it expresses the composer’s personal
dilemma – how to satisfy political expectations without entirely capitulating.
PROGRAM / PROGRAM
Gregor Pompe
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Prevod / Translation: Neville Hall