Mithras Piano Trio 2

The opening of this morning's concert draws a useful parallel to the opening of Tuesday's morning concert, with what is now believed to be Haydn's final piano trio composed after Beethoven's first works in this medium. Haydn warned his pupil they would not be well-received by the Viennese public, leading to a rift between the two. Bridge's Cobbett prize-winning work of 1907 leads us into Shostakovich's Second Trio – those with long memories will recall we heard the First Trio here at Kirkby Lonsdale last year. Composed in 1944, its use of klezmer melodies is a tribute to the Jewish people, of whose fate the Russians were now becoming aware, having only just come out of their own horrors in the siege of Leningrad.