@ Schloss Türnich
Thus Maurice Ravel, while he was working on his first and only piano trio. If one considers the external circumstances of its creation – the outbreak and beginning of the First World War, – it quickly becomes clear where this inner despair comes from. Did Ravel want to finish the work quickly in order to fulfill his desire to go to war for France as soon as possible. But instead of said B-accidentals, gloom and tears, Ravel’s so typical sound poetry surprises instead. Thus his music sounds almost „cheerful and relaxed,“ as Ravel biographer Theo Hirsbrunner describes it. Ravel writes poetry, and in the case of the second movement of his piano trio „Pantoum“ even literally; he pours the Malay poem form „Pantun“ into music. The number of stanzas is arbitrary; the second and fourth lines of each stanza are repeated to form the first and third lines of the following stanza. Thus an interaction of the individual rhymes is created; Ravel uses three musical themes with quite different characteristics for this interplay: staccato, romantic and expressivo. Ingenious – that is the feeling of the Linos Piano Trio. In this way, a kind of scherzo with the sequence A-B-A is created in a special way. The three musicians have clear ideas about the individual parts: cheeky and lively becomes smoky and sexy; the end, le grand final: electrifying. A synergy of such different emotions – for the three just another proof of the magic of Ravel’s music.
Recorded live at the old stable of „Schloss Türnich“ in Cologne, Germany.