TCHAIKOVSKY / VICTOR KISSINE

Piano Trios

1. Victor Kissine: Zerkalo for violin, violoncello and piano (2009)

Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky: Trio for piano, violin and violoncello, op. 50 (1882)

2. I. Pezzo elegiaco

II. A. Tema con Variazioni

3. Tema: Andante con moto

4. Variazione I

5. Variazione II: Più mosso

6. Variazione III: Allegro moderato

7. Variazione IV: L’istesso tempo

8. Variazione V: L’istesso tempo

9. Variazione VI: Tempo di Valse

10. Variazione VII: Allegro moderato

11. Variazione VIII: Fuga. Allegro moderato

12. Variazione IX: Andante flebile, ma non tanto

13. Variazione X: Tempo di Mazurka

14. Variazione XI: Moderato

B. Variazione finale e coda

15. Allegro risoluto e con fuoco – Andante con moto – Lugubre. L’istesso te

Gidon Kremer (violin),

Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė (cello),

Khatia Buniatishvili (piano)

This newest project from Gidon Kremer is one of the events of the season: the great violinist in a new trio with two outstanding young musicians, Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili and Lithuanian cellist Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė, celebrated as two of the most gifted players of their generation. It features a pair of compositions bracketing the history of Russian chamber music – a revelatory account of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio, juxtaposed with Victor Kissine’s Zerkalo of 2009.

Tchaikovsky has not previously been heard on ECM. When Kremer and friends play the Trio for piano, violin and violoncello op. 50, composed in 1882, they wring the emotion from the music’s Russian soul, and simultaneously convey the sense that the music is both modern and timeless.

Kremer recorded the work live for another label some years ago, but he wanted to return to the music as an “elder statesman” and bring to it the knowledge and insights acquired along the way. The result is a landmark ECM album. The recording was made at Munich’s Church of the Ascension (Himmelfahrtskirche) with Manfred Eicher producing: ECM New Series sound at its most glorious.

Cellist Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė has been a member of Kemerartica Baltica since 1997. In her native Lithuania she took master classes with Rostropovich and Tatjana Grindenko. Both Dirvanauskaitė and Khatia Buniatishvili appeared on Kremer’s recent Hymns and Prayers for ECM, where Buniatishvili, recent winner of a prestigious Borletti-Buitioni Trust Award, delivered an exceptional performance in the César Franck Piano Quintet.

ECM New Series 4764171