Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67

Written in the darkest year of the Second World War, this trio carries the weight of personal grief alongside the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust, and it never lets you forget either. Shostakovich composed it in memory of his close friend Ivan Sollertinsky, yet many listeners hear it as something far larger than a private elegy, more like a memorial for an entire civilization under assault. The finale draws on Jewish dance music in a way that feels simultaneously jubilant and devastated, as though joy itself has been hollowed out from the inside.

What to listen for

The opening is one of the strangest arrivals in all chamber music: a spectral, high-pitched melody emerges from what sounds like a single ghostly strand of sound, so thin and distant it barely seems to exist before the ensemble fills in around it. Notice how the piano trio format, usually an intimate conversational form, is pushed here toward something almost orchestral in its emotional weight, with the lower strings and piano grinding against each other in the scherzo like machinery that refuses to stop. In the finale, listen for how the dance theme cycles obsessively, gaining momentum yet feeling more hollow with each repetition, as though the music is dancing on the edge of an abyss.

Recommended recording

The Beaux Arts Trio brought extraordinary emotional directness to this work, and their traversal of the complete Shostakovich trios is widely regarded as a benchmark of insight and ensemble transparency.

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