Program — The Painted Lens, featuring: Nicola Matteis: Preludio e fantasia (arr. Merz Trio) | Haydn: Piano Trio No. 45 in E-flat Major, Hob. XV/29, I. Poco allegretto | Wolfgang Rihm, Fremde szene III | Alma Mahler: Laue Sommernacht (arr. Merz Trio) | Piaf/Louiguy/Mannot: La vie en rose (arr. Merz Tiro) | Carlo Gesualdo: Moro, lasso, al mio duolo (arr. Merz Trio) | Irish traditional: Samradh, Samradh (arr. Merz Trio) | Tchaikovsky: Piano Trio in A Minor, Op. 50 | Richard Strauss: Morgen (arr. Merz Trio)
Wolfgang Rihm's Strange Scene III is the frigid, tempestuous heart of this program, set against Tchaikovsky's great elegy on the second half. Bracing, passionate, and elegiac for a lost past, the Rihm gathers around it a small community of works ranging from Carlo Gesualdo to Alma Mahler, Édith Piaf to Irish traditional, all sharing a quality of unapologetic, undiluted experience. In the shadow of these twin elegies -- Rihm and Tchaikovsky -- we are charmed by mild summers and the joys of friendship, we experience the pains of heartbreak and la vie en rose, and we begin gradually to introduce the universe of emotion we will encounter fully in Tchaikovksy's "in memory of a great artist."
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