Jan. 15, 2013
Works for piano trio performed the Claremont Trio.
The Claremont Trio are longtime favorites at the Gardner Museum, and so it seemed fitting that they were part of the opening series at the Museum’s new Calderwood Hall almost exactly a year ago: on January 22, 2012. Their program featured another debut, too: the world premiere of the young composer Sean Shepherd’s Trio for piano trio, written especially for the Claremont Trio. Shepherd says he was inspired by the architecture of the new hall as he wrote the piece: “I was taken with the unusual shape of the hall, a vertical cube with three wrapping balcony levels hovering nearly directly over a square stage,” he writes.
Shepherd’s work is followed on the program by an early recording of the Claremont Trio in the Gardner’s former concert hall, the Museum’s Tapestry Room. We’ll hear their rendition of Anton Arensky’s Piano Trio, a well-loved piece by a little-known composer. The trio has been heard before on the Gardner podcast—in episode 44—but it bears repeating.
We’ll start with Sean Shepherd’s 2012 trio before journeying back in time to Arensky’s, from 1894.
