Queen’s Hall
Even the sudden, ear-shattering roaring from a forgotten turned-on microphone couldn’t put the Sitkovetsky Trio players off their stride. They’d just launched into the furious scherzo of Shostakovich’s Second Piano Trio when the noise forced them to stop, only to begin the movement again even more vehemently, even savagely.
The interruption probably couldn’t have come in a more fitting place – and they continued with a deeply tragic slow-movement chaconne, all sobbing phrases against a monumental piano backdrop, and a bitter, grotesque finale that left few doubts as to Shostakovich’s vitriolic sarcasm.
It was typical of the Trio’s intensely felt, forcefully projected performances across their programme of classics and rarities. In the second category, the Sitkovetsky players made a thrillingly strong case for Chaminade’s little-known Second Piano Trio, revelling in its almost orchestral-scale textures and churning emotions, even if their more recent commission, To the Pointer Stars by Iranian-born, London-based Mahdis Golzar Kashani, proved a little more elusive, slipping into attractive grooves that seemed to lack a sense of forward movement.
They opened, however, with a bounding and big-boned Beethoven ‘Ghost’ Trio, perhaps overegging the second movement’s unsettling otherworldliness, but offering a finale in grand arcs of sound that was both captivating and galvanising. Despite unexpected sonic intrusions, a concert of compelling performances and profound emotional depths.
David Kettle
