Rachmaninoff: Trio elegiaque No. 1 in G minor (1892); Trio elegiaque No. 2 in D minor, Op. 9; Vocalise, Op. 34, No. 12 – Hermitage Piano Trio – Reference Recordings RR-147SACD, 71:43 (6/14/19) [www.referencerecordings.com] ****:
The year 1892 marked Rachmaninov’s graduation from the Moscow Conservatory, where he had completed his Trio elegiaque in G minor in a matter of five days, 18 January – 21 January 1892. Cast in one continuous movement, the work teems with the imprint of Peter Tchaikovsky, whose Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 50 (1881) has cast rather a pall over the entire opus. A veiled hush in the strings opens the piece, then the piano enters with a broad melody that entirely imitates the Russian soul in Tchaikovsky’s score. The cello part (Sergei Antonov) proves especially fluent, and the violin (Misha Keylin) soars into the second tune in the major mode. Typically, the keyboard (Ilya Kazantsev) boasts thick chords and brilliant runs. Rachmaninov eschews traditional sonata-form in order to develop new materials that rather suggest a slow movement, literally without transition. The music proceeds through something like twelve episodes that reappear in symmetry at the recapitulation. The indication Lento lugubre aligns the music with Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony. The constant four-note patterns bears the feeling of a “fate” motif, and the music does assume the character of a funeral march at its conclusion.
As Tchaikovsky had dedicated his Piano Trio “to the Memory of a Great Artist,” in this case, Nicholas Rubinstein, so Rachmaninov in 1893 dedicates his Trio No. 2 to the Memory of Tchaikovsky. Rachmaninov constructs this epic chamber work entirely according to the Tchaikovsky template: a sonata-allegro followed by a set of variations. In Rachmaninov’s work, a third movement substitutes for the last, expansive variation in Tchaikovsky, which serves as a finale. In both works, that finale resounds in the manner of the Chopin Second Sonata, a funereal lament in which the main theme reasserts its tragic character.
The broad first movement Moderato – Allegro vivace resounds with Russian bells and blazing string ostinato that yield to a heartbreaking sense of nostalgia. All Russian has fallen into an abyss of mourning for its favorite son, and the keyboard part often imitates the block chord progressions in the dead man’s Piano Concerto in B-flat minor, Op. 23. The florid intensity of the keyboard part overwhelms the stringed instruments, often segueing into cadenza-style. Late in the movement, the momentum breaks down into kernels of lamentation, ostinato patterns in the strings over a sad parlando keyboard. Gradually, the tension rises once more, a paroxysm of grief, subjective and global. The violin part assumes a solo role briefly, then the piano picks up the tempo to crescendo in a series of potent sequences. The coda becomes liquid sadness, melodic and caressing.
Sergei Rachmaninoff, by Kubey Rembrandt Studios
Rachmaninov assigns his piano part an even greater role in the expansive second movement, Quasi variazione – Andante. The keyboard announces the elongated F Major theme, and the piano will also engage in an extended solo for the second variation. The eight variants reveal a degree of melodic invention, but the stringed instruments rarely come into dominance, despite the sweet interplay between violin and cello early. The third variant – rather virtuosic in the keyboard – introduces a degree of fancy and relative lightness into the otherwise tragic equation. Modal harmony opens the fifth variant, a pedal point in the strings over which the keyboard sings in the upper and middle registers. A kind of oriental mysticism ensues, a mix of Rimsky-Korsakov color and Beethoven drama. The keyboard flourishes from Kazantsev capture a Chopin finesse and Liadov impishness to which Keylin’s violin responds, then Antonov’s cello. The piano again surges forth, the stringed instrument reaching out to catch its impassioned utterance. The sudden descent in the keyboard urges comparisons with moments in Mussorgsky, though the motif might easily relate to Rachmaninov’s ill-fated Symphony No. 1. The strings engage in a duo of some intimate depth before the piano picks up the dark thread. Eventually, after some richly, anguished trio sonorities, the double-stopped cello and keyboard will collaborate in solemn procession to the coda.
The last movement Allegro risoluto – Moderato reverts to the D minor tonality. The piano opening has the potent ingredients of a solo sonata, here cadenza-style. The piano continues in imitation of a Tchaikovsky fantasy, until after a shattering climax, the opening, drooping motif of the work returns, a testament to Rachmaninov’s cyclic structure. Once more, the violin part disappears so that Antonov and a volatile Kazantsev may descend to Gorki’s or Dante’s lower depths.
The Hermitage Trio concludes with their recording (3-7 September 2017) of the 1915 Vocalise, here in the 1928 arrangement by Julius Conus, whose son Boris would marry Rachmaninov’s younger daughter, Tatyana. Rachmaninov wrote the wordless elegy for soprano Antonina Nezhdanova (1873-1950). The lyric extends and expands without pause, perhaps by its own arioso beauty overcoming its serene melancholy to arrive at some acceptance of tragedy as an unavoidable component of the human odyssey.
Producers Victor and Marina A. Ledin present us a gorgeously tempered triptych of the Rachmaninov melancholy yet inexpressively lovely sensibility.
–Gary Lemco
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