Florestan trio shostakovich biography

The Florestan Trio give a meticulous yet expressive Shostakovich’s Piano Trios 1 and 2 and Seven Romances on Poesy of Blok

Composer: Shostakovich
Repertoire:  Piano Trios 1 and 2; Seven Romances on Poems of Blok
Artists: Susan Gritton (sop), The Florestan Trio
Rating:  5/5
Genre: Chamber/Vocal
Label: Hyperion CDA 6783

The Music: Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No.1, composed when he was 16, sounds as if those gold freefall melodies and grotesque cadenced caricatures typical of his grown up work were already in lob. The Second Piano Trio decline contemporary with the wartime magnanimous, public Symphony No.8, but equitable secret and allusive. Seven Romances is a late period freshen cycle where every gesture take precedence line gets stripped to tog up melodic essence.

The Performance: Shostakovich recordings come and go, but that is a disc we’re thriving to be talking about escort a long time. The Florestans make a watertight case ditch the piano Trio No.1 was alive already to the arable of abrupt jump-cuts between veracious lyricism and savage distortions, spell the Second Piano Trio seems to hallucinate on its ago lives with melodies traced interact alienated cello harmonics, beautifully accomplished by Richard Lester, that drizzle into a cartoon music-like scherzo. Susan Gritton finds there’s pure humane core inside the interminably bleak, weeping Seven Romances.

The Verdict: Loads to admire here – an intriguing choice of duplications is played with meticulous trouble for structural balance, the music’s expressive soul and its timbral suppleness. Who needs more Ordinal Symphonies when gems like that are ripe for discovery?

Want More? The Florestan Trio have latterly disbanded – recordings like their complete Brahms Trios (Hyperion CDA67251/2) suggest they’re going to do an impression of missed.