The Timely Significance of Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 2

December 11, 2023

On Wednesday, December 13, 2023, the pianist Orli Shaham joins members of the Vancouver Symphony (USA) for a concert of chamber music at the First Presbyterian Church in Vancouver, WA. Ms. Shaham, the Artist-in-Residence at the VSO has programmed works by Mozart and Poulenc alongside the Piano Trio No. 2 by Dmitri Shostakovich.

 

Orli Shaham tells us how this program is especially relevant as awareness of anti-Semitism around the globe is acutely heightened. She writes:

In Shostakovich’s memoir, Testimony, the composer condemned anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union and said this about Jewish music:

I think, if we speak of musical impressions, that Jewish folk music has made a most powerful impression on me. I never tire of delighting in it; it’s multifaceted; it can appear to be happy, while it is tragic. It’s almost always laughter through tears. This quality of Jewish music is close to my ideas of what music should be. There should always be two layers in music. Jews were tormented for so long that they learned to hide their despair. They expressed despair in dance music. All folk music is lovely, but I can say that Jewish folk music is unique.

Ian MacDonald, in his biography The New Shostakovich, wrote: “Horrified by stories that SS guards had made their victims dance beside their own graves, Shostakovich created a directly programmatic image of it in the Trio's final movement.”

“I can't think of a more appropriate work for the current moment,” says Orli Shaham. “Please join us for a performance of Shostakovich's Second Trio, Poulenc's remarkable Sextet and Mozart's breathtaking and tragic Sonata in E minor for violin and piano this Wednesday at First Presbyterian Church in Vancouver, WA with the wonderful members of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.” Details and tickets