Romantic Russian Trios (Arensky & Gretchaninov) - Andreas Trio

ANTON ARENSKY (1861-1906)

Trio in D Minor, Op. 32

1. Allegro moderato

2. Scherzo

3. Elegia

4. Finale

ALEXANDER GRETCHANINOV (1864-1956)

Trio in C Minor, Op. 38

1. Allegro passionato

2. Lento assai

3. Finale [Allegro vivace]

ANDREAS TRIO

Eugene DRUCKER, Violin

Albert CATELL, Cello

Milton KAYE, Piano

Russian music has always been an affair of the people. The minstrels of the pagan era sang of and for the masses. Even official opposition under the Byzantine influence left native music potently smoldering. As an empire under the Romanoffs, Russia nourished its folk art stimulated its poets to mold into prose and prosody the epics of its legendary cycles. And a massive body of native material suitable for musical settings was created. As a student of Rimsky-Korsakoff, Anton Stepanovitch Arensky entered that realm at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. But after graduation with honors, he was appointed professor of harmony and counterpoint at the Moscow Conservatory and joined the opposition: Tchaikovsky. His intimacy with both factions seems to have encouraged the wrath of all concerned, for no one has had much of a kind word to say about him since.

Alexander Gretchaninov is not quite as well known. He studied in Moscow with Safonov and Arensky and later in St. Petersburg with Rimsky-Korsakov. After a period of teaching in Russia he moved to Paris and then to New York, in 1939.