THREE TIMES THREE

The series starts with piano trios by master composers from three very different eras. All three pieces achieve a fine harmonic balance between the three voices, and each describes a full dramatic arc. At the premiere of his “Ghost Trio” in 1808, Beethoven sat at the piano alongside Count Erdödy himself; Shostakovich composed his Trio in E minor in 1944, and dedicated it to his friend, the musicologist Ivan Sollertinski; and Smetana’s G minor Trio, composed in 1855, memorialised his daughter Bedriska, who died at the age of four and a half.