Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 50 "In Memory of a Great Artist"

Tchaikovsky wrote this trio in Rome over just two months, after the sudden death of his close friend and mentor Nikolai Rubinstein, the great pianist who had championed his work. The piece carries the subtitle 'In memory of a great artist', and Tchaikovsky composed it despite his own stated conviction that piano and strings made an unnatural combination. It is cast in two large movements: the first an extended elegy in A minor, the second a theme with a wide-ranging set of variations that eventually circles back to the opening material and closes with a funeral march.

What to listen for

In the second movement, after a series of variations that move through increasingly contrasted characters, the music abruptly shifts back from major to minor and the opening theme from the first movement returns at a slow, heavy tread. Listen for that moment of return: the tempo drops, the texture thickens, and what had been a lyrical theme is now transformed into something closer to a march.

Recommended rendition

The recording by Martha Argerich, Gidon Kremer, and Mischa Maisky on Deutsche Grammophon has been frequently cited for its intensity and spontaneity, often described as bringing an improvisational quality to the large-scale architecture of the work.

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