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The three pieces the Smetana Trio have selected for their new album came into being within the range of a mere four years, yet they represent three different musical universes. Anton Arensky's piano trio evokes the atmosphere of the 19th-century salons, where music was played to delight the gathered bourgeoisie company. The work Alexander Zemlinsky created at the age of 25 marks the accession of the seeking of new sound and harmony. The one-movement trio Sergei Rachmaninoff, a piano virtuoso and composer rolled into one, wrote when he was 19, teems with elegiac nobleness, which would remain the quintessential trait of the future globetrotter's music. And whereas Arensky's short life was marred by inner turmoil, the paths of Zemlinsky and Rachmaninoff were affected by outer circumstances - both of them died within a year, far away from their respective homelands, in the United States. The world-renowned Smetana Trio performs this works with their typical vivacity and zest.
