Piano Trio (Tchaikovsky)

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Piano Trio (Tchaikovsky)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – ) was a Russian composer of the Romantic music era. He wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the current classical repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake and Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture, his Piano Concerto No....
's Trio in a minor, op. 50 for piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard instrument. Widely used in Western music for solo performance, ensemble use, chamber music, and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to musical composition and rehearsal....
, violin

Violin

The violin is a Bow string instrument with four strings usually tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola and cello....
, and cello

Cello

The violoncello is a bowed string instrument. A person who plays a cello is called a cellist. The cello is used as a solo instrument, in chamber music, and as a member of the string section of an orchestra....
is subtitled In memory of a Great Artist, by whom the composer meant the pianist Nikolai Rubinstein (1835-1881), a close friend of the composer. Tchaikovsky wrote the work in 1881-2, shortly after the pianist's death, and the piece is marked by a tragic perspective. It was given its public premiere on October 30, 1882.

It is in two movements

Movement (music)

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession....
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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Piano

Violin

Cello

Movement (music)

I. Pezzo Elegiaco (Moderato assai - Allegro Giusto) (approx 18:00)

II.(A) Tema Con Variazioni: Andante con moto - (B) Variazioni Finale e coda (approx 29:00)

Total timing: approx 47:00.

The variations are as follows:

Var I -

Var II: Più mosso -

Var III: Allegro moderato -

Var IV: L'istesso tempo (Allegro moderato) -

Var V: L'istesso tempo -

Var VI: Tempo di Valse -

Var VII: Allegro Moderato -

Var VIII: Fuga (Allegro moderato) -

Var IX: Andante flebile, ma non tanto -

Var X: Tempo di Mazurka -

Var XI: Moderato -

Variazioni Finale e coda: Allegretto risoluto e con fuoco -

[Coda] Andante con moto - Lugubre

The pezzo is a darkly brooding and rather conventional romantic first movement with a beautiful opening cello solo with a theme that returns for a final funeral march. The second movement is rather more unusual: it opens with an almost classical melody, much like Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme
Variations on a Rococo Theme

The Variations on a Rococo theme for violoncello and orchestra was the closest Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ever came to writing a full concerto for cello and orchestra....
for cello

Cello

The violoncello is a bowed string instrument. A person who plays a cello is called a cellist. The cello is used as a solo instrument, in chamber music, and as a member of the string section of an orchestra....
, and then proceed with an assured set of variations, also like the Rococo Variations. After working itself into more and more ecstatic heights culminating with the final variation, it suddenly goes through a surprising modulation to the original minor key

Minor scale

A minor scale in music theory is a diatonic scale with a third scale degree at an Interval of a minor third above the Tonic . While this definition encompasses Musical mode with the minor third, such as Dorian mode, the term may more usually refer only to the natural minor, harmonic minor, and melodic minor scales, descri...
, and the theme from the first movement returns with an even greater gravity, and the entire piece concludes with yet another death march.

The work, and the second movement in particular, is arguably the most difficult piece Tchaikovsky wrote for piano, whether solo, with orchestra, or in a chamber group. It remains popular, in spite of its length (it plays for more than 40 minutes), for its breathtaking lyricism and the cosmic finality of its final statement.

Piano Trio (Tchaikovsky)

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