Tchaikovsky Piano Trio in A minor

[Holden Fourth]

I've just listened to the Kogan/Rostropovich/Gilels on Spotify. I've heard others that are very good (Heifetz/Piatigorsky/Rubinstein) but this performance just jumped out at me as being exceptional.

[SONNET CLV]

I've just listened to the Kogan/Rostropovich/Gilels on Spotify. I've heard others that are very good (Heifetz/Piatigorsky/Rubinstein) but this performance just jumped out at me as being exceptional.

Of course, you have three Soviet era Russians performing music written to lament the "memory of a great artist", Nikolai Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky's friend and mentor who died in late March 1881. This is music of loss and remembrance, but it seems to lament more than just the death of a friend. A few days earlier, Alexander II, the Emperor of Russia, had been assassinated, blown up by a bomb wielded by a member of The People's Will Movement. It was the beginning of the end, a new era was on the horizon, an unknown and frightening time, and one would imagine that a man with Tchaikovsky's sensitivity would react to the coming prospects with apprehension. And then Rubinstein dies. How else can three Soviet artists react to this music but to play with heart wrenching passion, pouring their own lamentations into the score, but doing so with a sense of simple respect for not only a great composer and his masterful Trio, but for a way of life long gone but (in the music) never forgotten.
Treasure that performance. We may never hear its like again.

It's intriguing to note that a short time prior to beginning the Trio, Tchaikovsky had expressed in a letter to Nadezhda von Meck a distaste for the combination of piano with violin and cello. Why, one wonders, did he then pursue the route of those instruments for his lamentation? Perhaps the incongruity of sounds had much to do with the meaning of the music -- a clashing of forces, so to speak. In the great Oedipus play of Sophocles, the number three carries tremendous weight, especially as it designates the crucial "place where three roads meet." The place of destiny. The meeting of the past, the present, and the future.

It's really an awesome art, this stuff called music.

[John F]

Prejudices as well as rules are made to be broken. Anton Rubinstein was a virtuoso pianist as well as a composer, and I suppose that influenced Tchaikovsky's choice. Of the options involving a solo piano, the trio may have seemed the most appropriate, combining intimacy with the string instruments' kinship to the human singing voice.

[lennygoran]

I've just listened to the Kogan/Rostropovich/Gilels on Spotify. I've heard others that are very good (Heifetz/Piatigorsky/Rubinstein) but this performance just jumped out at me as being exceptional.

I've never heard it--thank goodness I have a recording--I'll make it tonight's choice while preparing dinner!

L.Oborin
D.Oistrach
S.Knuschewitzky

Regards, Len

[jbuck919]

I've never heard it--thank goodness I have a recording--I'll make it tonight's choice while preparing dinner!

Were you in some kind of CD-of-the-month club? You seem to have a lot of recordings of pieces you've never listened to. (Just kidding you of course.)

[lennygoran]

You seem to have a lot of recordings of pieces you've never listened to. (Just kidding you of course.)

Too much time in the garden--not enough time by the listening devices--I'll never catch up. Regards, Len

[karlhenning]

There cannot be too much time spent in the garden, Len!

Thread Duty: I greatly enjoy the Argerich/Kremer/Maisky performance of the trio . . . though this thread reminds me that I've meant to check out a performance by Gidon Kremer/Giedre Dirvanauskaite/Khatia Buniatishvili which was highly recommended to me.

Cheers,
~Karl

[lennygoran]

There cannot be too much time spent in the garden, Len!

Karl and now with spring starting for real I'll fall even further behind--the garden chores have kicked in--the pump is back in the pond and the waterfalls are up and running, the dead leaves covering the lenten roses are being removed, hoses are being put out and connected, etc, etc, etc--despite this terrible winter it won't be long before the mowing will have to start! Regards, Len

[jbuck919]

There cannot be too much time spent in the garden, Len!

Karl and now with spring starting for real I'll fall even further behind--the garden chores have kicked in--the pump is back in the pond and the waterfalls are up and running, the dead leaves covering the lenten roses are being removed, hoses are being put out and connected, etc, etc, etc--despite this terrible winter it won't be long before the mowing will have to start! Regards, Len

And the weeding, Len, don't forget the weeding.

Seriously this time, don't forget to send us pics at regular intervals.

[lennygoran]

And the weeding, Len, don't forget the weeding.

Seriously this time, don't forget to send us pics at regular intervals.

Thanks for reminding me about the weeds--you made my day! I'll send photos but first our plants have to supply some flowers! Regards, Len

[Wallingford]

The Trio never seemed to me to possess the really salient trait of true chamber music--mainly a free exchange of ideas between several kindred souls. (i.e., Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Dvorak, Bartok)

[karlhenning]

The Trio never seemed to me to possess the really salient trait of true chamber music--mainly a free exchange of ideas between several kindred souls.

I have no trouble hearing a free exchange of ideas among kindred souls in the Tchaikovsky Op.50. I also hear overarching narrative, like one of the late symphonies, only on an exquisitely intimate scale. I think what strikes me as most objectionable in your remark here, is the casual imputation of the piece being anything less than true chamber music. If that magificent theme and variations movement is not true chamber music, well, then neither is the K.581, I suppose.

(i.e., Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Dvorak, Bartok)

Ah, but if we demanded of Bach that he be Vivaldi, Bach himself would have a 50% failure rate ; )

Cheers,
~Karl

[SONNET CLV]

Too much time in the garden... Regards, Len

I wonder, do you have a suggestion for music to grow plants by? Some feel the Mozart Effect works equally well on baby humans and plants. ( http://hubpages.com/hub/the-effect-of-m ... ant-growth )


Do you have speakers perched above your garden? I wonder if Pines of Rome would prove inspirational to plants. Or Beethoven's Sixth Symphony. Maybe something by Led Zeppelin. What's the name of that guitar player?

I wonder, do plants respond better to quiet, lethargic music, or something more cerebral? Or do they like to rock and roll? Has anyone played Bach or Schubert for their plants? Wonder what Stockhausen's "music" would produce? Or Penderecki's Threnody? Or Thelonious Monk! (That would probably get them sprouting in all different directions.)

In my own listening room, where the musical styles are myriad, plants don't seem to thrive. That might be because I forget to water and prune them, or because they often end up piled upon by a new shipment of vinyl records dropped where ever I can find a spot, which is usually where the plant will be. But it could be the music.

Do you have any suggestions for music to garden by? What works when you're working? Maybe Wagner's "Ride of the Walkyrie" when you're weeding?

Any suggestions are appreciated.

The Montana landscape will eventually thaw, too.

[karlhenning]

Too much time in the garden... Regards, Len :(

I wonder, do you have a suggestion for music to grow plants by? Some feel the Mozart Effect works equally well on baby humans and plants. ( http://hubpages.com/hub/the-effect-of-m ... ant-growth )

Do you have speakers perched above your garden? I wonder if Pines of Rome would prove inspirational to plants. Or Beethoven's Sixth Symphony. Maybe something by Led Zeppelin. What's the name of that guitar player?

Jimmy Page . . . but I perceive you were suggesting a pun on Robert Plant!

Cheers,
~Karl

[jbuck919]

Do you have any suggestions for music to garden by? What works when you're working? Maybe Wagner's "Ride of the Walkyrie" when you're weeding?

How about Till Eulenspiegel? Or Beethoven's famous bagatelle Fürteleiser?

[lennygoran]

Do you have any suggestions for music to garden by? What works when you're working? Maybe Wagner's "Ride of the Walkyrie" when you're weeding?

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Sonnet your suggestion sounds great! For now I use a silent solution=RoundUp--I know, I know, it's under attack by the environmentalists--Monsanto has really been taking a beating over the last years-still they spent enough money to defeat the Washington State vote on food labelling. Regards, Len

[lennygoran]

You seem to have a lot of recordings of pieces you've never listened to. (Just kidding you of course.)

Well tonight I listened to the Tchaikovsky Trio--it blasted yesterday's work--that Berlioz Romeo Symphony--right out of the water--what could Berlioz have been thinking! Regards, Len

[SONNET CLV]

For now I use a silent solution=RoundUp...

There is a band from Seattle called Soundgarden. From what I've heard from them, blasting their music at your weeds might prove more effective that even RoundUp. Of course, it could purge all the nutrients from the soil as well! Let alone what it will do to your eardrums.

By the way, Roundup is a very Montana-ish term, but with a quite different meaning than "a means to kill weeds". What it really kills is one's backside after horsing around all day.

[jbuck919]

For now I use a silent solution=RoundUp...

There is a band from Seattle called Soundgarden. From what I've heard from them, blasting their music at your weeds might prove more effective that even RoundUp. Of course, it could purge all the nutrients from the soil as well! Let alone what it will do to your eardrums.

By the way, Roundup is a very Montana-ish term, but with a quite different meaning than "a means to kill weeds". What it really kills is one's backside after horsing around all day.

[lennygoran]

From what I've heard from them, blasting their music at your weeds might prove more effective that even RoundUp.

Sonnet even so I might have to go for that music solution--weeding is absolutely the worst chore we face in our garden--with each new flower bed we create the harder our job becomes! Regards, Len

[lennygoran]

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That guy reminds of a neighbor we had here who came over after we moved up here and said the last owner had allowed him to ride his horse in out field--he was nice about it but we had to tell him that field was becoming garden and that we couldn't allow him and his horse on the property. And acrosee the road from us a neighbor had 3 or 4 horses--before we fenced off our garden every once in a while we'd be walking in our now garden and suddenly his horses having gotten loose would be charging up in our direction! Regards, Len

[stenka razin]

For a wonderful modern CD recording of Tchaikovsky's great Piano Trio, try the following:


Regards,
Mel

[SONNET CLV]

Jimmy Page . . . but I perceive you were suggesting a pun on Robert Plant!

Cheers,
~Karl

True. Which show how far outside pop culture I have grown.
Let's turn the page on this comment.

(Though I own quite a collection of LZ music, including all the studio albums on vinyl and cd, and some of the live stuff...) and though, as a somewhat guitarist (back in the day) I have familiarity with Jimmy Page's work and admire his "lines", I have long sported the opinion that Zep is a vastly over-rated band. I may be wrong. Time will tell. But they sure as hell were/are popular, and, schlocky or not, "Stairway to Heaven" is a pretty good listen to that I actually indulge in every now and then.)

[Chalkperson]

Jimmy Page . . . but I perceive you were suggesting a pun on Robert Plant!

Cheers,
~Karl

True. Which show how far outside pop culture I have grown.
Let's turn the page on this comment.

(Though I own quite a collection of LZ music, including all the studio albums on vinyl and cd, and some of the live stuff...) and though, as a somewhat guitarist (back in the day) I have familiarity with Jimmy Page's work and admire his "lines", I have long sported the opinion that Zep is a vastly over-rated band. I may be wrong. Time will tell. But they sure as hell were/are popular, and, schlocky or not, "Stairway to Heaven" is a pretty good listen to that I actually indulge in every now and then.)

Yes, you are wrong, the first six albums are peerless, Page is one of the best producers all time, his guitar playing knows no bounds, if you think Stairway to Heaven is good, try this version, it literally made the band cry...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=JK_DOJa99oo

Jimmy may be comng to my show in London tomorrow, I'll pass on your comments...

If this were not quite such an intellectual site I would tell you how I was once on top of a mountain in Morocco with Led Wallet (Percy Plant) stuck for something to talk about I enquired about the Plaster Casters of Chicago...