Horszowski Trio to Visit Noe Valley Chamber Music

Jesse Mills, Rieko Aizawa, and Raman Ramakrishnan (courtesy of NVCM)

This month Noe Valley Chamber Music (NVCM) will host this season’s only performance in San Francisco by the Horszowski Trio, which is based in New York. The trio takes its name from Mieczysław Horszowski, who was not only one of the most important pianists of the twentieth century but also one of the most influential teachers at the Curtis Institute of Music, where his students included Richard Goode, Murray Perahia, and Peter Serkin (whose father, Rudolf, was an equally influential force at Curtis). The trio is named in Horszowski’s memory because pianist Rieko Aizawa was his last pupil at Curtis. She joined with violinist Jesse Mills and cellist Raman Ramakrishnan to form that trio.

Horszowski was just a month short of his 101st birthday when he died on May 22, 1993. With the conviction that honoring one centenarian deserves honoring another, the program will include selections from Epigrams, that last work completed by Elliot Carter before his death at the age of 103 on November 5, 2012. The program will begin with Robert Schumann’s Opus 63 trio in D minor. Schumann figured significantly in Horszowski’s solo recitals; and, since he often performed at the Marlboro Festival, it is likely that all three of Schumann’s trios were also part of his repertoire. The program will conclude with Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 67 piano trio in E minor, one of the more harrowing instances of that composer’s efforts to document his impressions of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.

This program will be presented at 4 p.m. on Sunday, November 17. Tickets are $40 at the door with a $35 rate for seniors and a $10 rate for students aged thirteen or older. NVCM has created a Web page for online purchase. Tickets may also be purchased in advance by calling NVCM at 415-648-5236.