Beethoven Trio in G Op 121a ‘Kakadu Variations’

Shostakovich Seven Romances on Verses of Alexander Blok

Glinka Trio Pathétique in D minor

Shostakovich Trio No 2 in E minor

Fired up by the chance to take part in our Shostakovich series, the Rautio Piano Trio has devised a very special programme that touches on key moments from the incredible history of Russia’s past. It sees the Trio, whose players are drawn from Britain, Israel and Russia, performing alongside one of Britain’s best loved singers, Joan Rodgers. A student of Russian before attending music college, Joan Rodgers has won worldwide acclaim for her interpretations of Russian repertoire and is something of a dream pairing for Shostakovich’s haunting settings of the Seven Romances.

At the heart of the Trio’s programme are two lamenting trios by Glinka and Shostakovich. Glinka was the first Russian composer of note, and a composer who set the Russian musical scene alight. His Trio Pathétique is a beautifully proportioned piece that echoes with Russian folk melodies, its score is marked with the very personal quotation “I have known love only through the unhappiness it causes”.

A century later, Shostakovich was continuing in the by now well established Russian musical tradition, but his journey was scarred by a multitude of uprisings and wars that produced an incredible outpouring of works, from the Leningrad Symphony to the Trio we hear tonight. His Second Trio, written in 1944, is a work of captivating yet morbid intensity, a lamentation both for his close friend Ivan Sollertinsky and the victims of the Holocaust.