Echoes Across Borders

Completing their survey of the three Brahms Piano Trios, Mikayel Hakhnazaryan (cellist of the Kuss Quartet), pianist Sofia Melikyan and violinist David Haroutunian turn to the first trio of 1854, in the revised version the composer made in 1888. "I did not provide it with a wig, but just combed and arranged it's hair a little," said Brahms of the revision. It is coupled with a real rarity - Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht Op.4 (1899) in an arrangement for piano trio by Schoenberg's pupil Eduard Steurmann. This album neatly brings together an early work by Brahms, revised late in his career, with an early work by the young Schoenberg from just eleven years later. Schoenberg acknowledged the influence of the older composer upon his music in his essay Brahms the revolutionary.