Search - Ludwig van Beethoven, Dmitri Shostakovich, Jupiter Trio :: Beethoven: "Ghost" Trio; Shostakovich: Trio No. 2

The spectacular young Jupiter Trio won the Classical Recording Foundation's 2004 Samuel Sanders award, and this recording of two of the repertoire's greatest trios, is the result. Beethoven's trio - composed in 1809 and often referred to as "The Ghost" - was his first work in the genre in eleven years. Those eleven years marked a seismic rupture in Beethoven's life and music: his recognition that his hearing disability was indeed progressive and likely incurable; his subsequent suicidal depression in 1802, and his rebirth/recreation of himself in 1803 as a "hero" struggling against "fate". From the Third Symphony of 1803 on, Beethoven's music "breathes in a different world" than anything that had come before, and the "Ghost" is a perfect example of the sort of innovation and daring that marks Beethoven's mature music. Composed in 1943, Shostakovich's second trio is regarded as one of his finest compositions. Describing the first performance, Rostislav Dubinsky, later the first violinist of the Borodin Quartet remembered: "The music left a devastating impression. People cried openly. The last, the 'Jewish Part' of the Trio, by popular acclaim had to be repeated. After the first performance it was forbidden to play the Trio. Nobody was surprised." Praised for its mesmerizing energy in performance, the Jupiter Trio was awarded first prize at the Fourth Osaka International Chamber Music Competition in May of 2002. Chosen from 54 ensembles representing 19 countries, the Jupiter Trio became the first American ensemble in the history of the competition to bring home the gold medal.