DESCRIPTION:
Here is the "Pas de deux" from Michael Kurek's Trio for Violin, Violoncello, and Piano, choreographed by Sarah Slipper. This recording is from a live stage performance, never broadcasted. The choreography is based upon the long-distance relationship and correspondence of playwright Anton Chekov and actress Olga Knipper. The giant roll of paper and the dancers' interaction with it (sometimes using themselves as human pens, but largely abstract) represents their correspondence but also reflects the longing and aching of their separation, which can also be heard in the ultra-Romantic style of Kurek's music. The performance begins with the elderly Olga speaking some 50 years later, quoting Chekov's famous dying words, "Ich sterbe" (I'm dying.)

The music, completed in 2006, is only the first movement of Kurek's monumental 4-movement, 40 minute piano trio. Further information about the wonderful dancers and musicians may be found on the composer's web site.

This movement is in Sonata form, first Exposing three themes (representing first Olga, then Anton, then their love, respectively). The three themes are then Developed by combining fragments of all the themes in all combinations and moving through several keys, including fugal and other techniques, and growing to a climax at the Recapitulation. Rather than recapping themes two and three consecutively, both appear twice (switching parts the second time), but played together simultaneously in quodlibet.