Alan Kogosowski
and Maestro Neeme Jarvi

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Chandos UK

"...one of the finest recordings Jarvi and the Detroit Symphony have given us; in effect, it may be considered Rachmaninoff's Fifth Piano Concerto in all but name, for there is no question that it is worthy to stand beside the four concertos the Master left us.

"...Kogosowski has recreated the very special orchestral sound of Rachmaninoff.

"...echos of the Third Concerto, the Third Symphony and the Symphonic Dances come to mind.

"...deserves widespread distribution on its own merits, just as Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition has only helped bring that score before a far wider audience;  and I'd have no hesitation in placing Kogosowski's creation on the same exalted level.

"...this record immediately goes to the very top of my 'Best of the Year' list."

Stephen Haller

American Record Guide

"Tchaikovsky's sudden death, in November 1893, was a great blow to me," Rachmaninoff wrote in his 'Recollections'. "I lost not only a fatherly friend who had set me an example as a musician, which, consciously and unconsciously, I had always followed, but also a helpful and energetic patron of my young but steadily growing musical activities, a loyal supporter and faithful adviser who I needed badly for my first faltering steps in the world of music."

At the time Rachmaminoff recalls here, at age 20 he was only a year out of the Moscow Conservatory. He had already composed the Prelude in C sharp minor, which would carry his name around the world. But had Tchaikovsky lived , Rachmaninoff's growing fame might have increased beyond all bounds.

The death of the younger composer's mentor was a shock, and in response Rachmaninoff wrote his 'Trio Elegiaque', for piano, violin and cello, celebrating the memory of Tchaikovsky, just as Tchaikovsky had paid homage to his mentor, the pianist Nicholas Rubinstein, in his Piano Trio in A minor, twelve years earlier, in 1881.

The 'Elegiac' Trio, written while Rachmaninoff was 'tormented and sick at heart', spills over with the honest sentiments of youth. But if he was a master of the piano, he still often misjudged the capabilities of other instruments. Two revisions, in 1907 and 1917, made the Trio more compact, but did not solve its central problem, its unsuitability to chamber music forces. Thus, pianist Alan Kogosowski has gone to the heart of the matter, following the text of the 1893 Trio, and recasting the work for piano and orchestra. For the most part, he has taken the piano part verbatim, except where it seemed that this was more orchestral than pianistic. In these instances he has assigned the piano's lines to the orchestra, with the piano itself contributing decorative filigree.

The orchestrator and pianist has provided the following comments on the Trio's three movements:

"Throughout the work Rachmaninoff employed sounds that became hallmarks of his later works. The first movement echos the chant of the Russian Orthodox Church and the ringing of bells, together with other musical imagery which we associate the composer's musical evocations of Russia, and this required all the resources and colours of the full orchestra.

"The second movement, full of the spirit of Russian mysticism and a sense of distance, demanded special use of the woodwinds, along with individual orchestral effects.

"The final movement brings the work to a  powerful conclusion, returning to the opening elegiac theme in a characteristically symphonic manner.

"The new setting of the music allows full scope to the virtuoso role intended by Rachmaninoff for the piano in this moving elegy for his friend.''