The Kogan-Rostropovich-Gilels trio made a small but memorable
series of recordings, almost all of which have reached a lustrous
status in the annals of recorded music and none more so than the
Schumann D minor and the Archduke. DG restores the two
Haydn, two Beethoven and the Schumann trios and adds the well-known
Fauré C minor Piano Quartet where the trio was joined by the illustrious
violist Rudolf Barshai. The retro artwork is another nice touch,
though there’s nothing retro about the performances.
It has to be acknowledged
that their Haydn is moulded in warmly romanticised fashion.
Gilels leads with vibrant, tonally expressive contributions
from his string partners. There are well judged dynamics in
the slow movement of the G minor Trio and elegant precision
in its finale. Gilels’ clipped phrasing illuminates the opening
Allegro of the D major and there’s virility in the exchanges
between piano and strings in its finale. Kogan plays with especial
plangency.
The E flat major
trio is early Beethoven and isn’t inflated beyond its natural
bounds. Still, there’s plenty of attractive phrasing not least
in the answering patterns between Kogan and Rostropovich in
the Allegro moderato. But the Archduke takes the prize
amongst this quartet of performances. Subsumed virtuosity,
corporate identification and tonal homogeneity mark out the
parameters of a performance that is one of the most impressive
on record. The sheer refinement of the phrasing is a miracle
in itself - pellucid beauty of tone is allied to acute structural
imperatives and keeps everything alive – with playing that is
assertive but never aggressive in execution. Though the recording
does splinter in fortes – noticeable especially in the Scherzo
and an inevitable corollary of the Moscow studio’s deficiencies
– and therefore there is a lack of optimum clarity, the sense
of tension and articulated rhythm is astonishing. Fluid, flowing
and expressive but always con moto – that’s the slow
movement. This trio’s gift is one of quivering, refined sometimes
agitated eloquence. The finale is vivacity itself.
Vying for the prize
even in this outstanding collection in the Schumann, which in
some ways is even the superior of the Archduke. The magical
half tints, the painterly perspectives and gradations of tone
that illumine the trio are examples of the very best kind of
ensemble playing. There’s a superfine sensibility at work, a
quicksilver control of colour and texture. The desolate introspection
of the slow movement and, elsewhere, its urgent lyricism lifts
this kind of playing near to the Parnassus of narrative perception.
Kogan’s lofty purity, Rostropovich’s keening elegance, and Gilels’s
binding virtuosity ensure a reading of still magical beauty.
After which, though
many sing its praises, the Fauré comes as something of a letdown.
Confident and striding though the opening might be, I’ve always
found its Scherzo, for all the jocularity of its wit, lacks
Gallic refinement. And for all the beautifully coloured generosity
and pliancy of phrasing in the Adagio it has always struck me
as too tightly and heavily bowed. Others, as I say, don’t share
these reservations.
Let’s not end carping though. Other companies
have released this material. Doremi for example currently has
a five CD set [7921] which includes their other recordings,
of Mozart’s K254 and K564 trios, the Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich
Op.67 and Saint-Saens Op.18. This set also includes recordings
Gilels undertook with Dmitry Tziganov, Sergei Shirinsky and
also horn-player Yakov Shapiro – the Borodin trio in D and the
Brahms Horn trio. One hopes however that DG will collate the
remaining Kogan-Rostropovich-Gilels recordings in another two-disc
release such as this, one that will sit in perpetuity on any
true music-lover’s shelf
Jonathan Woolf
Leonid Kogan
(violin) 
