Contrasti e Riflessioni

“Contrasts and Reflections: Brahms, Haydn, Shostakovich?” spans three centuries

of chamber music, spanning profoundly different styles and languages. Brahms’s Trio No. 3

op. 101 opens with the dramatic energy and intense lyricism

of mature Romanticism. Haydn’s Trio in C major, a master

of Classicism, exudes lightness, elegance, and lively inventiveness.

It closes with Shostakovich’s Trio No. 2, op. 67, composed during the

Second World War: pages imbued with pain, irony, and emotional tension. Light

and shadow, reflection and virtuosity.