Biography

Misha Keylin  -  violin
Sergey Antonov  -  cello
Ilya Kazantsev  -  piano

One of the world’s leading ensembles of its kind, the Hermitage Piano Trio takes its name from St. Petersburg’s renowned art museum. Just as the Hermitage Museum represents both the very essence and history of Russia while also using its collection to embrace and promote cultures from around the world, the Hermitage Piano Trio embodies the majesty of its Russian lineage while at the same time including in its immense repertory works ranging from Russian masterpieces to the central European tradition, to contemporary commissions. Now based in New York, the Trio has made its mark for impeccable musicianship, sumptuous sound and interpretative range. After one performance, the Washington Post observed that the Trio exhibited “a rare degree of ensemble from beginning to end [and] such power and sweeping passion that it left you nearly out of breath.” The Hermitage Piano Trio recently signed a contract with Reference Records, on which it has released an all-Rachmaninoff program, to be followed by a program of twentieth-century Spanish music slated for release in 2023. Each of the Trio’s members enjoys a brilliant career in his own right. Violinist Misha Keylin has performed in nearly fifty countries on five continents as a soloist and has recorded to great acclaim all of Vieuxtemps’ solo works with orchestra. Cellist Sergey Antonov is one of the youngest cellists ever awarded the gold medal at the International Tchaikovsky Competition. Pianist Ilya Kazantsev’s many awards and honours include first prize at the Nikolai Rubinstein International Competition as well as top prizes at the International Chopin Competition and the World Piano Competition USA. LMMC debut.

https://hermitagepianotrio.com/

Notes

Amy Marcy Cheney Beach was a true American pioneer. She was the country’s first important woman composer, the first American woman composer to gain recognition in Europe (one of the first of either gender, actually), and one of America’s finest composers of art songs, the genre for which she was primarily known in her day. Although Beach was one of the few important early American composers who did not travel to Europe for a musical education (all her training took place in the Boston area), the three short movements of her Piano Trio, composed in 1938, are redolent of the florid chromaticism and lushly romantic style of late nineteenth-century French composers like Franck, Chausson, and Lekeu.

The First Piano Trio was Brahms's first published chamber composition. It was completed in 1854, but Brahms heavily revised the score 35 years later, and this is the version we almost always hear today. Unusually, it retains the same tonic (B) for all four movements, alternating B major and B minor, and most unusually for a work beginning in a major tonality, ends in the minor. Although written for just three instruments, this Trio boasts some of the most massive textures to be found in chamber music, assuming at times almost orchestral proportions. The richly sonorous sound of this Trio is apparent right from the opening measures, where the piano alone presents the widely-arching, immensely warm first subject. 

The few examples of chamber music in Rachmaninoff’s catalogue are all early works. The second of his two works entitled Trio élégiac is exceptional in a number of ways. At 45-50 minutes it is one of the longest works in the chamber music repertory, longer than many symphonies. Rachmaninoff the virtuoso pianist is very much in evidence throughout. The string parts are not easy, but the piano part amounts almost to another concerto in difficulty and prominence. Textures, especially for the piano, are so dense that the music almost cries out for orchestration. In fact, the Trio has been orchestrated by Alan Kogosowski, who also serves as the pianist in the recording.

Robert Markow