This is the Greenwich Trio playing Shostakovich's piano trio no. 2, op. 67, and holy berzerkers do they nail it. I would suggest actually watching the video for this one instead of just listening to the music in the background. The Greenwich Trio personify what those of us in the academic world might call 'embodying the performance.' In other words, they get in to it in a major way; the cellist can even be seen basically headbanging at some points. In short, this is intense music and the Greenwich Trio play it intensely.
So, a little background is perhaps in order. Shostakovich was born in Russia in 1906 and wrote this particular work in 1944, meaning he had witnessed two world wars and the Bolshevik Revolution by this time. That's enough to make anybody a little cynical, and as if that wasn't bad enough, the Soviet Union kept their artists on a fairly short leash. If art, whether it be literature, music, painting, etc., was considered 'degenerate,' it was banned, and artists ran the risk of imprisonment, exile, or if lucky they could 'rehabilitate' themselves to better fall in line with Soviet doctrine. This situation is one Shostakovich struggled with his entire life, suffering multiple denunciations by the state and constantly toeing the line, inserting musical jabs 'in code' and consistently aligning and re-aligning himself in relation to the Soviet government. While composers having to 'play a part' is no new situation (Gustav Mahler had to convert to Catholicism to maintain a job, whether or not that conversion was 'authentic' is something I will not speculate on here), it is particularly poignant in Shotakovich's case due to his visibility (he was on the cover of Time magazine) and the extremely turbulent, 'world-stage' manner of Soviet politics.
Little surprise, then, that this piece is what one might call 'angsty.' The last movement shown above is, I think, particularly turbulent. It invokes a 'danse macabre,' literally 'dance of death' (like the Iron Maiden album without the crappy cover art). The danse macabre has a long literary and visual arts tradition (often portrayed as a group of skeletons dancing), and when combined with the Jewish melody quoted in the movement can be seen as a man reflecting on the horrors of World War II and the 'world-as-it-was' in 1944. Though this is not a definitive interpretation, it certainly gives reason for the 'angst' and downright heaviness of the work.
Shostakovich would return to the Jewish melody quoted in the fourth movement again in his 8th string quartet, written nearly 20 years later and soon after he officially joined the Communist Party. The quartet is full of quotes from Shostakovich's earlier works and has been thought by some to be a kind of musical suicide note by the very melancholy composer. And for my money, something about the way the bit is quoted makes it even more 'grotesque' and a bit more frightening than its employment in the 2nd trio. This plan of suicide was not carried out, but the music he wrote for his epitaph was too good not to publish, and the 8th quartet has become one of Shostakovich's most popular works and quite possibly the most performed string quartet of the 20th century. Thus, I will leave you for now with the 2nd movement of the 8th quartet (the reason it seems like it just 'cuts off' out of nowhere is because the quartet is written to be played start to end with no breaks between movements, so get off your lazy bum and go check out the whole thing).
P.S. - If you dig this, you might want to check out Shostakovich's 10th quartet or 5th, 7th, and/or 15th symphonies. It's also quite possible that I'm gonna jam out on some of Shostakovich's Russian contemporaries in the not-so-distant future, so yeah, watch out!
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