… Such is the concentration of [City of London Festival] venues in the Square Mile that one can stroll to the next concert without breaking into a sweat, as was my intention on Tuesday.
“So devastating was the Gould Piano Trio’s performance of Shostakovich’s Trio No 2 at St Lawrence Jewry, however, that I changed my plans…”
Written in 1944, the Trio was inspired by Nazi atrocities at Treblinka. Shostakovich, who had been evacuated from Leningrad, was haunted by reports of Jews being forced to dance at gun-point on mass graves. Hence the brutal passacaglia for piano (Benjamin Frith), hence the shell-shocked wail of harmonics, hence the traumatised dreydlekh, hence the world-upside-down insanity of a sher for cello (Alice Neary) and violin (Lucy Gould), stripped of all joy and hope and humour.
“Master musicians in Arensky’s opulent Trio in D minor – their octaves impeccably tuned, their articulation graceful, their phrasing intelligent, their sound delicious – the Gould Piano Trio here proved themselves to be master dramatists. Gould and Neary’s blanched, then bloody tones, and Frith’s near-orchestral control of dynamics made this an uncommonly powerful and disturbing experience…”
…
The Concert:
Gould Piano Trio
City of London Festival, “Postcards from…”
St Lawrence Jewry, London
July 2006
Arensky Piano Trio in D minor, op. 32
Shostakovich Piano Trio no. 2, op. 67
photo: classicalsource.com