Analysis Shostakovich Piano Trio No
Shostakovich Piano Trio No.2 mov.1 Analysis
The Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, for violin, cello and piano, Op. 67, with four movements, by Dmitri Shostakovich was written in 1944, in the midst of World War II. The work received its premiere in Leningrad on 14 November 1944. After 1936, Shostakovich separated his compositions to two parallel sections, one for public consumptions, the other one for personal expressions. Therefore, Shostakovich’s chamber music probably constitutes the most complete body of “the real Shostakovich,” the music he wanted to write, rather than the music he was allowed to write. Shostakovich dedicated the Piano Trio No.2 to the memory of Ivan Ivanovich Sollertinsky, who was one of a very close friend of him, had died at the hands of the Nazis on February 11, 1944. During this hard war time, the Jews in the Nazi death camps were forced to dance beside the graves which their bodies would soon be thrown. Therefore, Shostakovich’s personal grief of the death of Sollertinsky he expressed in this trio was accompanied by another equally strong sentiment: the resentment at the atrocity – thousands deaths of targeted specific citizens – under the totalitarian regimes.
The whole piece is under the shadow of the death, and the first movement sets the funereal tone for the whole work. The beginning is an introduction with fugal elegy subject, and then it followed with a ternary form. This movement is based on a main theme and some short themes that derived from the main theme, connected with the same motives, and number of short motives (composed of patterns of eighth and quarter notes) which are varied, fragmented, and combined with each other throughout this movement.
The E minor fugal opening is with six-measure idea, introduced by the cello alone, playing an Andante elegy theme a with mute and in high-pitched harmonics that appear to illustrate a spirit or ghost. The theme a tends to be arch-shaped, containing motif x (dactyl rhythm) in m.1 and
The Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, for violin, cello and piano, Op. 67, with four movements, by Dmitri Shostakovich was written in 1944, in the midst of World War II. The work received its premiere in Leningrad on 14 November 1944. After 1936, Shostakovich separated his compositions to two parallel sections, one for public consumptions, the other one for personal expressions. Therefore, Shostakovich’s chamber music probably constitutes the most complete body of “the real Shostakovich,” the music he wanted to write, rather than the music he was allowed to write. Shostakovich dedicated the Piano Trio No.2 to the memory of Ivan Ivanovich Sollertinsky, who was one of a very close friend of him, had died at the hands of the Nazis on February 11, 1944. During this hard war time, the Jews in the Nazi death camps were forced to dance beside the graves which their bodies would soon be thrown. Therefore, Shostakovich’s personal grief of the death of Sollertinsky he expressed in this trio was accompanied by another equally strong sentiment: the resentment at the atrocity – thousands deaths of targeted specific citizens – under the totalitarian regimes.
The whole piece is under the shadow of the death, and the first movement sets the funereal tone for the whole work. The beginning is an introduction with fugal elegy subject, and then it followed with a ternary form. This movement is based on a main theme and some short themes that derived from the main theme, connected with the same motives, and number of short motives (composed of patterns of eighth and quarter notes) which are varied, fragmented, and combined with each other throughout this movement.
The E minor fugal opening is with six-measure idea, introduced by the cello alone, playing an Andante elegy theme a with mute and in high-pitched harmonics that appear to illustrate a spirit or ghost. The theme a tends to be arch-shaped, containing motif x (dactyl rhythm) in m.1 and
Bibliography: Keller, James M. Chamber Music: A listener’s Guild. Oxford University Press, 2011. Radice, Mark A. Chamber Music: an Essential History. The University of Michigan Press, 2012.