Trio élégiaque No. 2, Op. 9 Prelude in B Minor Op. 32, No. 10 ‘The return’ (arr. for piano trio by Th. Beijer)
Sergei Rachmaninov’s music is loved by many, being heard regularly on concert stages throughout the world. That said, his Second Piano Trio is virtually unknown, as it is seldom taken on by musicians. His trio is passionate – the weight and sincerity of his deep feelings form the basis of the work. He dedicated the work to his good friend and mentor Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who had died that year. The sadness, melancholy and love imbuing this work are genuine and timeless, touching our hearts as audience or performers.
All three of us grew up, quite independently of each other and for a number of reasons, with recordings by the great masters from the first half of the 20th century: Rachmaninov of course, but also Vladimir Horowitz, Jascha Heifetz, Pablo Casals, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Yehudi Menuhin and Gregor Piatigorsky to mention just a few. This goes in part to explain why we made friends with each other and became professional colleagues. We were smitten by the "old" way of performing and all of us wanted to learn from that style.
Return is an important theme for us on this CD. Not just because Rachmaninov's Second Trio starts with a beautiful, melancholy theme that returns in all its majesty after more than 50 minutes of the most stirring music, but also because this recording and the music represent for us our own return to the world after two years of musical isolation during the pandemic period. The timing is symbolic: 2023 sees the 150th anniversary of Rachmaninov's birth. And it is partly thanks to this master composer that we have been able to remain motivated over the past two years, exploring and discovering, for which we owe him a huge debt of thanks. This is one of the reasons why we had the Prelude in B minor arranged for piano trio, as a fitting close to our CD. Recorded at Muziekcentrum van de Omroep (studio 1), Hilversum, August 4 & 5, 2022.
