Tchaikovsky: Serenade for
Strings; Arensky: Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky; Shostakovich: Chamber
Symphony, Op. 110a. New Moskow Chamber Orchestra conducted by Igor Shukow
(Zhukov). Telos Music. $16.99.
Tchaikovsky: Trio for Piano,
Violin and Cello; Arensky: Trio No. 1 for Piano, Violin and Cello;
Shostakovich: Trio No. 2 for Piano, Violin and Cello; Mendelssohn: Trio No. 2
for Piano, Violin and Cello. Cho Piano Trio (Young-Bang Cho, piano;
Young-Mi Cho, violin; Young-Chang Cho, cello). Telos Music. $33.99 (2 CDs).
Tchaikovsky to Arensky to
Shostakovich: both these Telos Music releases of chamber-music recordings from
the 1990s showcase the progression of Russian music from one of these composers
to the next and the next, in the process highlighting the similarities as well
as the differences in Russian (and, later, Soviet) thinking about music for
small ensembles. The interconnectedness of the works is sometimes surprising
and always fascinating. The best-known piece on either release is Tchaikovsky’s
Serenade for Strings, a work that is
quite atypical for its composer in its sunniness (all four movements are in
major keys) and its generally optimistic temper. Igor Shukow (his name so
spelled here, although it is usually transliterated as “Zhukov”) seems to want
the piece to be weightier than it needs to be: the first movement is played
quite slowly and expansively by the New Moskow (again, spelled that way here
rather than “Moscow”) Chamber Orchestra, the ensemble that Shukow founded in
1983 and led until he disbanded it and retired from conducting in 1994. There
is considerable beauty in this approach, but also some dragginess; likewise,
the lovely second-movement waltz goes beyond wistfulness to near-stasis here.
The pacing of the third and fourth movements is better managed, and the finale
concludes with a burst of speed that really shows the orchestra’s considerable
capabilities. Nevertheless, this work’s themes are less typical of Tchaikovsky
than is the theme on which Anton Arensky (1861-1906), who greatly admired
Tchaikovsky and was for a time deemed his spiritual heir, based his Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky.
This theme is from the fifth of Tchaikovsky’s Sixteen Songs for Children, and Tchaikovsky himself reused it twice
in other forms. Arensky handles it skillfully: his Variations are an 1894 expansion of the second movement of his
String Quartet No. 1, written in 1893 in Tchaikovsky’s memory. The theme is
handled reverently and intelligently, the variations’ songlike and melancholy
sections predominating until the work eventually fades away in resignation – scarcely
an upbeat piece, but one handled here with considerable sensitivity and
understanding. Those characteristics also pervade the performance of
Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony, Op.
110a, which gets the best reading on this CD. The work is Rudolf Barshai’s
transcription of Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8 – a modification so well
done that Shostakovich not only accepted it but also gave it its title and opus
number. Filled with Shostakovich’s trademarks, from the D-S-C-H motif at the
beginning to the sardonic humor in the middle movements to the eventual resignation
(not unlike that in the Arensky Variations)
with which the piece concludes, the Chamber
Symphony is notable for the quotations within it from multiple earlier
Shostakovich works, including his second piano trio, his first and fifth
symphonies, and others. Shukow does not overdo the quotations – that would
impede the work’s flow, which was obviously important to the composer, since
the five movements follow each other without breaks. But Shukow is clearly
aware that the self-quoting is there, and he manages to make the Chamber Symphony both impressive in
itself and a summing-up of sorts of Shostakovich’s oeuvre up to 1960, when String Quartet No. 8 was written. These are
live recordings by Zhukow and his ensemble, and while their dates are not
given, they were clearly made before the orchestra disbanded and Zhukow
re-embarked on a career as a pianist.
The recording dates are given for the performances by the
Cho Piano Trio’s two-CD set: the Mendelssohn and Shostakovich trios were
recorded in 1993, the Arensky and Tchaikovsky in 1996. The Chos are family, and
their close relationship is reflected in their near-intuitive cooperation in
the music here, where competitiveness among instruments is completely laid
aside in favor of warm sound and beautifully integrated performances. Among the
Russian pieces here, the Tchaikovsky is again pre-eminent. Written as a
memorial to pianist/conductor Nicolai Rubinstein and first performed in 1888,
it is a far grander, more expansive and more unusually structured work than
Arensky’s Variations in memory of
Tchaikovsky. The Tchaikovsky trio is in two movements, the first expansive and
overtly elegiac, the second a set of variations whose conclusion is in effect a
12th variation and almost a movement in itself. The heartfelt
handling of this sumptuous, deeply felt music is first-rate in this recording,
and the Cho Piano Trio also does a fine job with the first of Arensky’s two piano
trios – this one a memorial not to Tchaikovsky (although the trio dates to
1894, as do the Variations) but to
cellist Karl Davidov. Arensky uses traditional four-movement form here, but
gives the greatest weight to the first movement, which is twice as long as any
of the others. There is a certain level of salon-like superficiality to the
music, notably in some parts of the Scherzo, but the work’s melodies flow
beautifully and help show why Arensky was deemed by many to be Tchaikovsky’s
successor. As for the Shostakovich Trio No. 2, this too is a memorial work,
written in 1944 in memory of Ivan Sollertinsky, longtime artistic director of
the Leningrad Philharmonic and a close friend of Shostakovich, who died
suddenly at age 42. Like the Arensky trio heard in this recording,
Shostakovich’s is in traditional four-movement form, using in its final
movement a them from Jewish folk music that Shostakovich later recalled in
String Quartet No. 8 and the Chamber
Symphony. The Shostakovich trio is, like so much of the composer’s music,
steeped in contrasts, here ranging from the overt sorrow permeating the first
movement, to a typically grotesque Scherzo, to a Largo of lamentation that clearly includes Chassidic elements, to
the Jewish-themed final danse macabre
that is the longest movement of the work. The Cho Piano Trio is particularly
adept here at distinguishing the movements from each other while giving the
work as a whole a sense of integration and completeness. The players also do a
very fine job with the one non-Russian work offered in this recording,
Mendelssohn’s Trio No. 2 – a work from 1845, nearly 100 years before the Shostakovich
heard here, but one showing that in some senses the piano trio changed little
during the ensuing century in terms of the balance among the instruments and
the expressive roles assigned to each of them. Mendelssohn was a supreme
melodist, and this trio moves through many moods as effectively as does
Shostakovich’s, although those moods are quite different ones and Mendelssohn’s
tunes are far more melodious. Especially noteworthy here, and very well handled
by the performers, is the contrast between the lovely, songlike second movement
and the quicksilver Scherzo, whose energy will remind many listeners of that of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The
releases of the Cho Piano Trio and the New Moskow Chamber Orchestra under Igor
Shukow both have more than enough variety to keep listeners entranced, plus
enough parallels to make for very intriguing thoughts about the roles that
composers, especially the three Russians heard in both recordings,
conceptualized for specific musical forms.
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