The Ghost Piano Trio

The Ghost Trio return as part of a Chamber Music New Zealand tour. Their attractive programme opens with the work that inspired their trio’s name – Beethoven’s Opus 70, No 1, known as “The Ghost”.

It was Beethoven’s famous piano student Carl Czerny who wrote that the second movement reminded him of the ghost in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. That movement is characterised by eerie sustained notes and an ominous mood and the nickname has remained ever since.

The concert continues with the attractive music of Tōru Takemitsu who has been honoured as the most important composer in Japanese music history. A new piece by New Zealander Glen Downie will be premiered during the trio’s tour. Downie holds a Master of Musical Arts from New Zealand School of Music, has won numerous awards and is studying for a PhD in composition at Cambridge University.

The final work in the concert will be Shostakovich’s second trio, one of the composer’s most personal and forceful works. Written in 1944 it reflects the conflicts of the time, both personal and political, and is a work that, ranging from bleak beauty to compulsive
agitated rhythms, never fails to deeply touch its listeners.