On this album, two completely different individuals meet a composer of the late Romantic era, representative of the so-called Czech musical nationalism, i.e. Antonn Dvorak (18411904), and Arno Babajanian (19211983), born in Armenia in the 1920s, less known on the European music stage.
What do they have in common? Both composers created in special circumstances. Dvorak acted under the influence of strong ideological ideas related to the shaping of the Czech nationality. Hence his interest in topics related to folklore, landscape and the history of the land inhabited by his fellow men. The Trio in E Minor, Op. 90 B. 166, written in the early 1890s, is a cyclical, multi-link composition, devoid of formal discipline, but endowed with narrative logic and illustrative value, which, combined with the melodic invention typical of Dvo 345;k, makes the Trio feel like a story that attracts attention and engages emotions.
Folk themes, including traditional Armenian music, can also be heard in the Trio in F-sharp Minor from 1952 by Arno Babajanian. It could have been homesickness that tormented the composer when he lived in Moscow and created there, in the dark 1950s and under the conditions of the socialist ideological regime. After all, the folk nature is dominated in this work by the slightly dramatic mood and turbulent course of the piece, blowing up the classical form chosen by the composer.
For the needs of the performance, the classic composition of the trio was arranged for clarinet, cello and piano. New sounds revive old tones, revealing new and unexpected qualities of the compositions. They are performed by the Baltic Trio, associated with the Stanis 322;aw Moniuszko Academy of Music in Gdansk, which features Andrzej Wojciechowski (clarinet), Maciej Kulakowski (cello) and Miroslawa Sumlinska (piano).
