Coming together on stage for Franz Schubert’s colossal Trio in E-flat Major, the most cosmological of all piano trios, are violinist Zoë Black, cellist Timo-Veikko Valve and pianist Stefan Cassomenos. This electrifying music from 1827 – now heard frequently as the soundtrack of dozens of feature films, miniseries, and documentaries – can trace its ethno-cultural origins to the mystical key characteristics of E-flat major, which with its three flats was long thought to be connected to the holy trinity and therefore the key granting access to the divine, whilst it was also described as the key of heroism, of majesty, and of grave seriousness. Schubert takes us on a wild cosmic ride through almost all the keys in this kaleidoscopic work – as his colleague Robert Schumann wrote, “a Trio by Schubert passed across the musical world like some angry comet in the sky.”
Franz Schubert
Trio No 2, D 929
Zoë Black Violin
Timo-Veikko Valve Cello
Stefan Cassomenos Piano
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