Composer: Victor Kissine, Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky
Performer: Gidon Kremer, Giedre Dirvanauskaite, Khatia Buniatishvili
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: ECM
Catalogue: 4764171
Release: 2011
Size: 262 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
01. Kissine: Zerkalo
Tchaikovsky: Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 50 ‘In Memory of a Great Artist’
02. Pezzo elegiaco
03. Tema: Andante con moto
04. Variazione I
05. Variazione II: Più mosso
06. Variazione III: Allegro moderato
07. Variazione IV: L’istesso tempo
08. Variazione V: L’istesso tempo
09. Variazione VI: Tempo di valse
10. Variazione VII: Allegro moderato
11. Variazione VIII: Fuga. Allegro moderato
12. Variazione IX: Andante flebile ma non tanto
13. Variazione X: Tempo di mazurka
14. Variazione XI: Moderato
15. Allegro risoluto e con fuoco – Andante con moto – Lugubre. L’istresso tempo
This newest project from Gidon Kremer is one of the events of the season: the great violinist in a new trio with two outstanding young musicians, Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili and Lithuanian cellist Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė, celebrated as two of the most gifted players of their generation. It features a pair of compositions bracketing the history of Russian chamber music – a revelatory account of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio, juxtaposed with Victor Kissine’s Zerkalo of 2009.
Tchaikovsky has not previously been heard on ECM. When Kremer and friends play the Trio for piano, violin and violoncello op. 50, composed in 1882, they wring the emotion from the music’s Russian soul, and simultaneously convey the sense that the music is both modern and timeless.
Kremer recorded the work live for another label some years ago, but he wanted to return to the music as an “elder statesman” and bring to it the knowledge and insights acquired along the way. The result is a landmark ECM album. The recording was made at Munich’s Church of the Ascension (Himmelfahrtskirche) with Manfred Eicher producing: ECM New Series sound at its most glorious. Cellist Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė has been a member of Kemerartica Baltica since 1997. In her native Lithuania she took masterclasses with Rostropovich and Tatjana Grindenko. Both Dirvanauskaitė and Khatia Buniatishvili appeared on Kremer’s recent Hymns and Prayers for ECM, where Buniatishvili, recent winner of a prestigious Borletti-Buitioni Trust Award, delivered an exceptional performance in the César Franck Piano Quintet.