Rachmaninoff & Shostakovich

The 2025-26 Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival radio series launches with three tour de force performances of works from the early and mid-20th century. Kirill Gerstein interprets the considerable melodic gifts of Sergei Rachmaninoff as he performs the composer’s arrangement of one of his own popular songs, the gentle yet lamenting, “Lilacs.” Dohnányi’s Serenade in C Major is scored for string trio and dates from 1902, when the 25-year-old composer was touring the world as a virtuoso pianist. As violinist Martin Beaver tells us, “much like the Beethoven string trios, this trio feels like a quartet with a member missing, so you have to fill in the holes. It’s really kind of a subtle balancing act as you thread your way in and out.” “For me, it makes it super fun,” says violist Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt. “The sound world is very warm-hearted and open, rhapsodic.” The hour concludes as pianist Gilles Vonsattel, violinist Leila Josefowicz, and cellist Paul Watkins join forces in the somber yet sublime Piano Trio in E Minor that Shostakovich created while living in Stalinist Russia in 1944. “It’s a war piece,” explains pianist Gilles Vonsattel. “The sounds of what was occurring around him are there in the music.”