NZTrio - Somi Kim, Amalia Hall, Ashley Brown Photo: Tai Nelson/NZTrio
Despite the fact it was written in an idyllic summer in 1914 just before Germany invaded France in WWI, this trio's European roots cast a wide net across the world. The work's inspiration starts with Ravel’s Basque heritage...the small region between Spain and France where he spent time completing this Piano Trio after a six year incubation.
Ravel’s music was sometimes dubbed the work of a Swiss clockmaker, and he addressed his critics in a letter directly.
He wrote, "They say I’m dry at heart. That’s wrong. I am Basque! Basques feel things violently but they say little about it and only to a few.”
There’s an elusive restraint to this work that’s become a masterpiece for the piano trio. The first movement is a rhapsody to the Basque country, and Ravel adapts a basque dance called the zortzico for the rhythm that opens the work. The second movement, titled 'Pantoum' draws its influence from a Malayan verse-form that was used by the poet Baudelaire. The third movement is called 'Passcaille' after an old courtly dance, and it’s dark mystery takes a simple change in harmony at the end through which light breaks through as the trio enters into the shimmering start of the finale.
Recorded at St Andrew's on The Terrace, Wellington by RNZ Concert
Producer/engineer: David Houston
