Proms Chamber Music 4 (9.08.20) Benedetti-Elschenbroich-Grynyuk Trio

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

When not performing as a soloist, violinist Nicola Benedetti appears frequently as a chamber musician – most often with the trio she co-founded with pianist Alexei Grynyuk and cellist Leonard Elschenbroich. Here the three musicians pair Brahms’s first and stormiest piano trio – its darkness belying the work’s major key – with music composed in 2013 by American-born composer Arlene Sierra. Inspired by the migration patterns of butterflies, her Butterflies Remember a Mountain is a work of pointillist detail and shimmering harmonies, painted in a sequence of delicate textural gestures.


Brahms: Piano Trio No 1 in B major
Arlene Sierra: Butterflies Remember a Mountain

Nicola Benedetti (violin)
Leonard Elschenbroich (cello)
Alexei Grynyuk (piano)

(From BBC Proms 7 September 2015)

[bluestateprommer]

In the original 2015 thread on this PCM, in all the praise for the trio's musicianship and performance of the Brahms op. 8 (with which I heartily concur; very warm-hearted and relaxedly authoritative music-making), the contemporary work by Arlene Sierra was completely omitted from the discussion. From giving it just the one listen this week, it's definitely "audience-friendly" in idiom. It was actually a clever move by the trio to put it after the Brahms, rather than before, which would normally be standard programming practice in classical concerts. The Sierra work ends up as a good palate-cleanser and complement after the Brahms "main course", as opposed to getting mentally swept aside had the order been reversed. Should give it another listen before time runs out.