Piano trios 1 & 2, viola sonata

Description

This album dedicated to Shostakovich echoes the long musical and personal friendship between the composer and Vladimir Ashkenazy. The intimacy of their relationship, as well as Ashkenazy's endeavor to celebrate Shostakovich's music throughout his life, as a pianist and conductor, gives a particular and unique stamp to this album. Its program covers the entirety of Shostakovich's life, from the Piano Trio No. 1, rarely performed, an almost abnormally romantic composition he wrote at only 16 in 1923, to his very last composition from 1975, the year of his death, his Violin and Piano Sonata Op. 147. Between the two is presented the Piano Trio No. 2, first performed in Leningrad in 1944 and inspired by the tragedy of the Second World War. Ashkenazy is joined in the trios by violinist Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay and cellist Mats Lidström, in interpretations that wonderfully convey the pain and passion embedded in these works. The Norwegian violist Ada Meinich, a former member of the Faust Quartet, performs the Viola Sonata, a disturbing introspection on the life of its composer.