Classics Considered

Every so often a melody from my past will just pop into my head, unannounced and unprompted. Today it was the opening of Tchaikovsky’s piano trio, a piece I fell in love with as a teenager. There is something about this piece and its constant battle between major and minor keys that especially appeals to me. The motif beginning at 13:16 is one of the most sublime lines I’ve ever heard.

The piano trio was written in the winter of 1881–1882. For context, Ibsen’s Ghosts premiered around the same time, and Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov was serialized about two years earlier.