Ravel composed his Piano Trio M67 just before enlisting voluntarily in the First World War. Inspired by the Basque country and its zortziko dance, the Trio ends with a sombre, almost anguished fourth movement. A mood inspired by the impending war? In his Piano Trio No.2, op.67, Shostakovich too is affected by the horrors of war and the death of a close friend. For the first time in the Russian composer’s output, we hear a Jewish theme, a danse macabre echoing the terrible events of the time. Another point in common between the two works is that both include a passacaglia. For the Busch Trio, it was self-evident that these two heart-rending works should be brought together on the same album.
