Brahms Trio: Rachmaninoff

The Strad Issue: July 2025

Description: Intuitive musicianship illuminates a Russian master

Musicians: Brahms Trio

Works: Rachmaninoff: Trios élégiaques nos.1 and 2

Catalogue number: NAXOS 8574687

‘Six feet of Russian gloom’ was Stravinsky’s mischievous description of Rachmaninoff, though admittedly he had much to be gloomy about in a life buffeted by revolution, exile and bouts of creative paralysis. In 1893 he suffered the loss of one of his staunchest early supporters, Tchaikovsky – a setback which, conversely, brought forth a magnificent work: the second of his two Trios élégiaques.

At over 45 minutes, this is on a scale to match Tchaikovsky’s own Piano Trio, composed following the death of his own mentor, Nikolay Rubinstein. Both works contain an expansive set of variations and are dedicated ‘to the memory of a great man’. Rachmaninoff’s, though, closes with a shorter finale that appears to strive for something more positive. The Brahms Trio is intuitively responsive to the work’s varied moods, from resignation to rage, from the chant-like phrases of the opening – reflecting both composers’ abiding love of Orthodox chant – to the bell effects that are never long absent from Rachmaninoff’s music.

The First Trio élégiaque was composed in the space of just a few days in 1892 for a hastily convened chamber concert. Long overshadowed by its bigger sibling, it already demonstrates the student composer’s grasp of form and technique, and is given a reading of unstinting commitment by the Russian ensemble. And if the piano dominates the strings in the sound picture – well, what else would you expect of Rachmaninoff?

DAVID THREASHER