Rimsky-Korsakov was quite realistic about his limitations as a composer of chamber music. Having spent much of the summer of 1897 on his G major String Quartet and C minor Piano Trio he acknowledged that ''chamber music was not my field'', resolved not to publish either work and actually left the Trio unfinished.
Still, as anyone acquainted with the Piano and Wind Quintet will know, he was not short of charming ideas, and the Trio, in its 1939 completion by the composer's son-in-law Maximilian Steinberg, proves to be a mellifluous piece, perfectly pleasant to listen to for relaxation. That the fires of inspiration burned somewhat feebly is suggested by some fairly shameless cribbing—from Beethoven's second Rasumovsky Quartet in the first movement and from his Op. 131 and the Schumann Piano Concerto in the second. And since construction generally takes the line of least resistance there is something of a palm court flavour to the proceedings (the work fills a generous 46 minutes).
The Moscow Trio give a beautifully fluent account, warm-toned and flexible but without trying to make the work into something it isn't. The 1986 recording stays just the right side of over-reverberant. Shchedrin's Echo Sonata of 1984 makes an interesting fill-up. 'Echo' here refers not just to a compositional device but to the archetype of Bach's solo violin music which occasionally breaks through the surface of the piece in the shape of brief quotations. As a concept this is fairly old hat by Western standards, but Shchedrin has worked in the quotations with some subtlety, and the feeling of a personality looking over the artist's shoulder—be it mentor, dictator or foreign culture—is strikingly Russian. The final tuning-down of strings registers as a genuinely motivated gesture rather than a cheap trick.
One of the most welcome things about the Sonata is that it provides such a splendid vehicle for Sergei Stadler. This young Soviet virtuoso is clearly following in the Kremer tradition of commitment to new music coupled with total mastery of the instrument. It will be a crime if he is not soon invited to display his art in the West.'