Search - Wolfgang Redik, Marcus Trefny, Stefan Mendl :: Shostakovich, Schnittke: The Piano Trios / Vienna Piano Trio

Dmitri Shostakovich's trios and quartets are among his most private--and in some ways purely cerebral--musical expressions. They are much less tonal than his symphonies, his ballets, or his oratorios, and they can be quite forbidding. This is true of Shostakovich's piano trios, with the first being quite remote. However, the Vienna Piano Trio invests this music with a refreshing warmth that clearly comes from understanding the soul of this music. The big surprise is the way Alfred Schnittke's Trio illuminates the two Shostakovich works. They seem as if they might have come from the same mind (such was Schnittke's way of morphing all kinds of musical styles into something uniquely his own). This would make a fine addition to any collection of 20th-century chamber music. --Paul Cook