CD ECM Records Gidon Kremer, Dirvanauskaite, Buniatishvili - Tchaikovsky, Kissine: Piano Trios

2011

Gidon Kremer - vioara
Giedre Dirvanauskaite - violoncel
Khatia Buniatishvili - pian

Victor Kissine: Zerkalo
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Trio, Op.50

Two compositions bracketing the history of Russian chamber music. A revelatory account of Tchaikovsky’s piano trio op.50, juxtaposed with Victor Kissine’s “Zerkalo” of 2009, a work dedicated to performers Kremer, Dirvanauskaitė and Buniatishvili, and inspired by two lines from Anna Akhmatova: “The mirror dreams only of the mirror / Silence watches over silence.” Issued on the eve of a major tour with dates in both Europe and Japan, and with Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili and Lithuanian cellist Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė hailed as two of the most gifted players of their generation, this newest project from Gidon Kremer is certain to be one of the events of the season.

Tchaikovsky’s command of musical drama is in perfect evidence in Gidon Kremer’s quicksilver violin playing. His Balkan partners, Lithuanian cellist Giedre Dirvanauskaite and Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili, display their association with Kremer in their seamless support and interaction with the violinist, particularly in the extended “Pezzo elagiaco” opening movement of the trio. The trio remains fully integrated through the variations to the coda; sumptuous and plush, Kremer’s is an excellent reading of Tchaikovsky in a small space.
C. Michael Bailey, All about jazz


Victor Kissine’s „Zerkalo“ (The Mirror), composed in 2009 and dedicated to the performers on this warmly engineered release, proves to be an intriguing companion piece for the Tchaikovsky Piano Trio. A compelling and emotionally varied work which draws its inspiration from two lines in Anna Akhmatova’s “Poem Without a Hero”, it begins with a sequence of framentary melodic ideas which dradually develop a coherent force as they gather momentum before disintegrating into a shadowy and bleak coda.
Erik Levi, BBC music