Auckland Piano Trio in Gisborne

TRIO: International award winning pianist Xing Wang and Auckland Philharmonic string players James Sang-oh Yoo (cello) and James Jin (violin) will be performing in Gisborne. Picture supplied

THEY brought us the other-worldly sound of a live marimba performance last month and now Musica Viva Gisborne is soon to present the Auckland Piano Trio.

International award winning pianist Xing Wang and Auckland Philharmonic string players James sang-oh Yoo (cello) and James Jin (violin) will next week perform works by Mozart, Shostakovich and Kodaly.

The Mozart selection in the programme is descibed as refined, delicate music. Kodaly’s is imbued with the folk music of Eastern Europe.

Russian composer Shostakovich can be challenging but intellectually engaging. His 1944 Piano Trio No. 2 grew out of both national and personal tragedy.

The siege of Leningrad, in which over a million people died, had come to an end in January, the German army was in retreat from Russia, and revelations of the horrors of the death camps and the fate of Jews were beginning to surface.

On losing his closest friend at this time, Shostakovich dedicated his second Piano Trio to him.

The first movement begins with an unearthly fragment of a fugue. The cello plays high, eerie harmonics, the muted violin enters below and the piano follows with deep octaves.

This is Shostakovich at his bleakest.

“A sudden increase in pace brings not relief, but a heightening of anxiety. The motif with which the work began is thrown from instrument to instrument, there are sudden climaxes, and the movement peters out uncertainly just as one expects some new development. “