This disc first appeared around a decade ago on Hyperion CDA67216,
and now makes a reappearance on the company’s lower budget Helios
label. The repertoire is Russian, one a canonic trio, the other
a far less well known work which was originally written for
entirely different forces. I suppose the Tchaikovsky A minor
can’t help but dwarf most disc companions – not merely by virtue
of its size but also by the very nature of its emotional depth
and passionate melancholy. It’s perhaps for this reason that
the Glinka was chosen, though it actually serves as a not unattractive
aperitif. But aperitif, I have to say, is what it very much
remains.
It was written in 1832 and is a compact four movement work lasting
here less than a quarter of an hour. It was originally written
for clarinet, bassoon and piano but it has long been better
known in its arrangement for standard piano trio. It cleaves
to an interesting lineage, sounding in places not unlike Beethovenian
models, most expressly in the opening movement. The scherzo
that follows is energetic but light-hearted in style and tone,
though Glinka ensures that there are moments of contrast, which
are genteelly pugnacious. There is warm filigree in the Largo,
but the decorative, indeed almost rococo piano plasticity points
to a none too profound sense of depth. The finale exploits those
almost contradictory elements of the genteel and the stormy
that are embodied in this work. It’s played with circumspect
intelligence by the Moscow Rachmaninov Trio, who are wise to
the work’s more superficial elements.
Concerning the Tchaikovsky Trio I must be rather more circumspect.
This is a perfectly serviceable performance, well laid out and
distributed, with a just balance between the instruments. It
is however something of a partial reading of the score, something
that might come as balm for those who tire of high voltage examinations
of its gruelling rhetoric. Yet few surely would prefer this
rather discreet and tidy performance to that, say, of the Borodin
Trio or the Gilels-Kogan-Rostropovich of hallowed memory, or
indeed the Ashkenazy-Perlman-Harrell. What this performance
lacks is not necessarily molten vibratos and conquistador pianism,
but a cumulative sense of the work’s power. That said, one is
pleased to note that the big cut sometimes taken is declined
by these forces.
Even so, one can hardly recommend a disc for fourteen minutes
of genial Glinka. The burden of the matter is a lightweight
Tchaikovsky Trio, so caveat emptor.
Jonathan Woolf
Moscow Rachmaninov Trio 
