Pianist Kim Tae-hyung and members of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra will perform in a concert featuring chamber music pieces composed by Russian composers on Aug. 24 at the Sejong Chamber Hall in Seoul.

Chamber pieces by Rachmaninoff, Medtner and Tchaikovsky will be performed under the title of “Russian Romantics,” with Rachmaninoff’s Trio Elegiaque for violin, cello and piano No. 1 in G minor opening the concert. Pianist Kim with violinist Kim Deok-woo and cellist Kim So-yeon, both of the SPO, will perform the first of the two Elegiac trios by Rachmaninoff written in 1892 when the composer was a 19-year-old student. The second was written the following year, in 1893, after the death of Tchaikovsky. 
 

Though the first trio is known to not have been inspired any tragic event, the single sonata-form movement piece -- unusual for a piano trio composition that often has three or four movements -- seems to have borrowed the form Tchaikovsky had used some 10 years earlier. Tchaikovsky composed a piano trio to commemorate the death of close friend Nikolay Rubinstein, also an acclaimed Russian composer.

Medtner’s Piano Quintet in C major, the composer’s posthumously published work, will be performed by pianist Kim, violinists Joo Yeon-Kyung and Wojtek Dziembowski, violist Kim Sung-eun and cellist Sohee Chang. First sketched in around 1903, the work was composed in 1949, two years before his death. The piece is regarded as the synthesis of the Russian composer’s oeuvre.

Tchaikovsky’s “Souvenir de Florence,” a string sextet written for two violins, two violas and two cellos will close the evening. Composed in 1890 after the composer’s visit to Florence where he composed opera “The Queen of Spades,” the sextet composition was inspired by the European climate. The delightful and rich Russian sounds come in four movements some 35 minutes long each.

Launched in 2008, the SPO is holding its chamber music series about four to five times a year. The upcoming “Russian Romantics” concert is the fourth of five planned for this year.

By Shim Woo-hyun (ws@heraldcorp.com)