Works for piano trio by Suk and Smetana performed by the Eroica Trio on September 14, 2014.Suk: Elegie, Op. 23Smetana: Piano Trio in G Minor, Op. 15We’ll first hear Josef Suk’s Elegie, a piece written for a memorial celebrating the writer Julius Zeyer, an important influence and close collaborator of Suk’s. Suk saw the Elegie as a musical tribute, specifically, to Zeyer’s epic poem Vysehrad, a work based on Czech national legends. A violinist by training, he wrote a great deal of chamber music, including this lovely trio, a brief work of about five minutes.Our second piece in this “duo of trios” is the Piano Trio in G minor of Bedřich Smetana. The loss that inspired this piece was even closer to home: Smetana wrote this trio in the wake of the death of his eldest daughter, who passed away at age four from scarlet fever. Even as a young child, she showed promise as a gifted musician, and Smetana was understandably devastated by the loss. He dedicated the piece to her memory, and though there is no descriptive “program” to the work, Smetana’s mourning is palpable in the music.Both pieces were recorded at the Eroica Trio’s recent performance at the Gardner Museum, in September 2014.