Pre-Concert Chamber Performance

Join us for this special pre-concert chamber performance in Symphony Hall. The performance is open and complimentary for all April 13 and 15 classical ticket holders.

Although Maurice Ravel declined most French honors, Ravel nonetheless became a central figure in French arts, and after the death of Claude Debussy in 1918, Ravel was asked to contribute to a special Debussy commemoration. This lean, ruthlessly linear Sonata, picks up some of the esthetic cast and economy of means of Debussy's late work. "The music is stripped to the bone," Ravel wrote. "Harmonic charm is renounced, and there is an increasing return of emphasis on melody."

Rachmaninov's Trio élégiaque was written in 1892 when he was 18 years old. Despite his youth, Rachmaninov shows in the virtuoso piano part his composing ability to cover a wide spectrum of sound colors. This trio has a distinctive connection to Tchaikovsky's Trio in A minor, both in the unusual, expanded first movement, and in the funeral march as a conclusion.