Karl Markovics & Eggner Trio

"We all come from Gogol's Overcoat," bowed the author Fyodor Dostoevsky before the novella published in 1842, which represented a key work for many subsequent Russian writers. The plot revolves around the clerk Akaki Akakiyevich Bashmachkin, who earns his living as a copyist in a ministerial department in St. Petersburg. His modest and lonely, yet not dissatisfied, everyday life is entirely filled with writing work. When the need arises to purchase a new overcoat, unrest disrupts his established routines: Although Akaki has to save the money for the garment by going without food, the acquisition opens up a whole new perspective on the beauty of life. However, the joy is short-lived: during a nighttime attack, Akaki's new overcoat is stolen - a shock from which he does not recover. Gogol's equally touching and biting social critique is brought to life by the Austrian actor Karl Markovics. The Eggner Trio provides the 'sound of St. Petersburg': Dmitri Shostakovich's Piano Trio No. 1 was composed in 1923 in the Russian metropolis, while the Piano Trio No. 2, composed twenty years later, had its premiere here in 1944.

Program
Nikolai Gogol // 1809-1852
The Overcoat. Novella // 1842
intertwined with
Dmitri Shostakovich // 1906-1975
Piano Trio No. 1 in C minor, Op. 8 // 1923
Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67 // 1943-44

Cast
Karl Markovics | Narrator
Eggner Trio
Georg Eggner | Violin
Florian Eggner | Cello
Christoph Eggner | Piano