Rachmaninov’s two Trios elegiaques have drawn several good recordings. These include the Copenhagen Trio on Kontrapunkt (12/94), together with the Borodin Trio and the Bekova Sisters on Chandos (3/85 and 11/95 respectively). Long neglected, the former of the two is a well-written and sympathetic work, especially when the long arch of its single movement is as well judged as here. The second Trio is intricately intertwined with the example of Tchaikovsky, whose enthusiastic support of the young Rachmaninov led to him overcoming his reluctance to conduct even his own music and asking if he could perform The Rock at a St Petersburg concert. Tchaikovsky’s untimely death so affected Rachmaninov that he made the second movement of his Trio a set of variations based on a theme from The Rock (something the otherwise detailed insert-note does not mention), and went so far as to write the theme itself initially for the mournfully churchy tones of the harmonium. Mercifully he abandoned this bizarre notion, and no one has thought to revive it. He was, in any case, in some difficulty with textures that even Tchaikovsky found hard to handle in his own Piano Trio, a homage to Nikolay Rubinstein which this homage to Tchaikovsky reflects. The players do well to maintain clarity of texture, as does the recording producer, though Viktor Yampolsky’s vigour inevitably comes to dominate some of the balance. But these are sensitive and well-judged performances.
There are minor bonuses in the inclusion of the two Op 2 cello pieces, the second a pleasant piece of mock-orientalism, and the two Op 6 violin pieces, the second a somewhat over-demonstrative essay in Hungarian vehemence.'