Rubinstein ''complete" Piano Trios

[saxtromba]

It's really unfortunate that the very recent release of Anton Rubinstein's piano trios by the Edlian Trio comes as a two-disk set rather than two separate disks; in the latter case, it would be possible to recommend, albeit with reservations, the second disk and recommend ignoring the first.  As it is, though, Rubinstein completists such as myself will want the whole thing, but others may want to hold off due to the high price of the set.

There's good news and bad news, musically speaking.  The fifth trio is indeed complete, filling one of the many large holes in the Rubinstein discography.  The fourth trio is cut, but not massively; movement one is complete, movement two omits the repeat but is otherwise complete, movement three is missing 18 measures just before the end, and movement four is missing 36 measures, and has a noticeably bad edit just before four missing measures at the return of the main theme.  I suspect the whole thing was recorded (minus repeats; the Edlian Trio takes only one of these in the entire set), and then cut down to fit the CD.

The major cuts come in the earlier trios.  The third trio, first movement, is missing 12 measures; as every other recording of this trio, so far as I know, is complete, this alone would remove the Edlian version from serious consideration.  The second movement is complete, while the third lacks the repeat in the middle section (the repeat in the main section is observed), and the fourth is missing 82 measures. 

Much more damage is done to the first and second trios.  The first lacks the exposition repeat in the first movement (ten pages worth of music), as well as that in the third movement.  More seriously, all of the repeats in the slow middle movement are omitted (94 measures worth), along with an additional 38 measures in the opening and closing sections.  But these omitted repeats are not simply the same music heard twice; Rubinstein starts each variation with one statement, explicitly calling for the repeat to add new material, thus creating a sort of expanding dialogue ( as well as allowing for sections in which the two strings are heard without the piano).  All of this is missing (to be fair, the same omission occurs in the only other recording of this trio known to me, that by the Romantic Trio on Russian Disc some years back; this trio still very much needs a truly complete recording)

Weirdest of all is the fate of the second trio.  The first movement lacks the exposition repeat and twelve measures at the conclusion.  The second movement has six (yes, just six) measures excised.  The fourth movement lacks the repeat and a few other measures.  The third movement is utterly mangles; the entire opening section is missing (135 measures), and there are other cuts as well.  What makes this particularly odd is that a couple of years ago the Edlians released the same recording (so far as I can hear), presumably as part of the fund-raising toward this release, and all of the movements were complete (except, of course, for the missing repeats). 

As to the performances and recordings themselves, the energy level is usually high; in fact, some of the tempos seem a bit rushed (the middle movement of Trio #1 especially).  The violin sound is rather thin, and balance between the instruments not always good (the violoncello simply disappears on more than one occasion).  It's good to have five and most of four (the latter is, I'm inclined to think, Rubinstein's best trio, though not by a wide margin); better versions of the other three exist (If you can find the old Melodiya recording of Trio #3, with Eleanora Teplukhina, Marat Bisengaliev, and Yuri Semenov, grab it; it's a superb recording and performance).  This would have been a better release had it been on three disks, with the Piano Quartet filling out the third, leaving room for truly complete versions.

[eschiss1]

an earlier post had a summary list of the cuts per movement - it was right here (from October 23, last year). Thanks!

[giles.enders]

Thank you for this very informative review.  I have looked at the cd several times in HMV, there is no mention of the cuts, or that these trios are incomplete.  I was tempted to buy it but am now pleased I didn't.  I hope the music magazines will draw their readers attention to this.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Yes, it is a particularly helpful posting - together with details given earlier in similar posts by both (as I recall) Eric and John Boyer. So many thanks, Saxtromba - and a friendly welcome to the forum from one of its members!

I had the same dilemma as Giles. On the one hand, I very much wanted to hear these trios given what I've read about them. On the other, I had no desire to gratify the record company by buying a set whose 'editing' (and lack of acknowledgement of the cuts) shows a certain contempt for purchasers. After all, I'd be pretty furious if I bought a book that appears to be an edition of, say, Middlemarch, and then discovered the publishers had quietly cut various chapters so that the resulting thing happened to fit within 300 pages.

However, for good or ill (and moral principles to one side!) I went the other way to Giles. The first factor, the desire to become acquainted with the trios even if savagely cut, overpowered my annoyance at the product. And as others have remarked, only three (?) of the five trios have been recorded, and promising as they are, the CDs are either unavailable or very overpriced. I was also nudged into buying the set by two fairly enthusiastic reviews: one on MusicWeb, and the other on that zany and delightful American site, CROCKS. In both cases the reviewers were aware that there might be cuts but were unaware of their extent. So I hoped that my ears would somehow hear what my understanding told me wasn't there (as it were!).

And I'm rather glad I bought the set. True the recording itself isn't first class (but then, after all, nor is any recording) but the Edlian go about it with gusto and lyricism. But let us very much hope that soon good complete recordings come our way. Then there will be no excuse at all for buying this present set. That, I suppose, is a bit hard on the Edlian Trio (whom I assume are innocent) but will serve Metronome right for both its deception and selling people short.

Peter