MIKHAIL GLINKA Trio Pathétique

Mikhail Glinka
Trio Pathétique
I. Allegro moderato | 00:00
II. Scherzo: Vivacissimo/Trio: Meno mosso | 05:01 | 05:46
III. Largo | 08:16
IV. Allegro con spirito | 13:35

Yan Liu, clarinet
Doron Laznow, bassoon
Bolai Cao, piano

Mikhail Glinka was a trailblazer for Russian nationalist music. As the first composer to incorporate his country’s folk melodies into his works, he set the course for Russian music and inspired a prolific generation of composers—including Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Cui, and Balakirev (collectively known as The Mighty Five)—who would follow him.

Despite Glinka’s stature as a specifically Russian composer, his Trio Pathéthique is “not so easily recognizable as a work by the ‘Father of Russian Music,’” according to the music critic Denby Richards. This is perhaps because Glinka wrote it as a 28-year-old, when he was still a student of composition in Milan. While in Italy he fell under the influence of such quintessentially Italian composers as Donizetti and Bellini; consequently, this trio has a distinctively sunny Italian flavor. Still, Glinka couldn’t quite shake his own darkly Romantic spirit: despite the mood of the piece, he inscribed on its manuscript, “I have known love only through the pain it brings.”

Performed Wednesday March 29, 2017 in Field Concert Hall, Philadelphia, PA

https://www.curtis.edu