PLAY! Festival 2023

In January 1892, Rachmaninoff made his official debut in Moscow, playing solo pieces by Chopin, Liszt, and Tchaikovsky, plus some of his own chamber works: two pieces for cello and piano, and his Trio élégiaque in G minor, which he had written less than two weeks before the concert in just four days. It is cast in a single long movement, with pronounced similarities to the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A minor, composed in 1882 after the death of Nikolai Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky’s friend, teacher, and the director of the Moscow Conservatory. Tchaikovsky’s long first movement was called “Pezzo elegiaco” (Elegiac Piece), and like it, Rachmaninoff’s “Elegiac Trio” ends with a funeral march. There are other points of reference to Tchaikovsky, but the Trio’s powerful sweep, along an arc of growing animation before the somber close, is pure Rachmaninoff.

Join us for this lunchtime recital of highlights of the piano trio repertoire by Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, and Franck, performed by violinist Lydia Callomon, cellist Katie Mair and pianist Ernest Lui.

Event programme

Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 1 No. 3 (1st movement)

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Trio élegiaque No. 1 in G minor

Dmitri Shostakovich: Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67 (4th movement)

César Franck: Piano Trio No. 1 in F sharp minor, Op. 1 No. 1 (1st Movement)