Beethoven For Three: Symphony 6 & Op 1 No 3

Emanuel Ax (Klavier), Leonidas Kavakos (Violine), Yo-Yo Ma (Cello)

Following the acclaimed recording of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphonies Nos. 2 and 5 in a version for piano, violin and cello, the next album in the "Beethoven for Three" series featuring Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos and Yo-Yo Ma will be released Nov. 11 on Sony Classical. This time the program includes the Symphony No. 6 "Pastorale" and the early, original Piano Trio Op. 1, No. 3. Like the first release, this recording challenges the traditional boundary between chamber and orchestral repertoire, offering two different sides of the composer with the same three voices. In the Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 1 No. 3, we hear Beethoven's brilliant exploration of the central expressive possibilities of three instruments; in the "Pastorale," arranged for trio by Shai Wosner, the piano, violin and cello transcend their own identities to represent the creativity of the natural world, becoming by turns bird, Bach and storm. Like the first "Beethoven for Three" release, this recording continues a musical conversation between three friends and provides a rare and intimate glimpse into Beethoven's development as a composer. "It used to be perfectly normal that the first release of a symphony was not the full score," Ax says, "because hearing an orchestra was a very rare event. You didn't get this music until dozens of years later; you got the arrangement for a piano four hands or a trio or a quartet, and that's how you learned the music. So we're going back to the roots." "'We all feel it's a wonderful thing to be able to participate in a symphony,' Ma points out. 'One of the things that has separated people since the beginning of recording is the categories we put people in: Chamber musicians, orchestral players, people who play concertos, people who do transcriptions, people who compose, people who conduct, are all seen as separate categories that don't overlap. This silo thinking discourages real creativity and collaboration between people. That's why we think it's very important today to go back to the first principles of music, which is simple interaction between friends who want to do something together." "Like the fifth and seventh symphonies, the sixth symphony consists of small motifs that become longer lines of music through repetition, in a sense a form of minimalism," Kavakos explains. "But unlike the fifth and seventh symphonies - which are not only physically demanding, but also musically and psychologically demanding, with an almost obsessive repetition of motifs - the sixth symphony uses that repetition to create a lighter, more uplifted mood. It just goes on forever, but you never tire of it." Reviews "Once again, this album offers a listening experience of the finest kind. The sonority almost makes you forget that there is no larger orchestra at work here. In Shai Wosner's trio version, the three artists make music in perfect harmony, the individual voices appear sharply separated and at the same time intimately connected." (RONDO

Price: $22.98