At Phillips, Hermitage Piano Trio does Russian tragedy proud

They were squeezing chairs into every last inch of the Music Room at the Phillips Collection on Sunday, and little wonder: Three of Russia’s most spectacular young soloists had teamed up for an afternoon of mostly-Russian music, and it promised to be an extraordinary afternoon, steeped in the kind of magnificent tragedy that Russians do best. And, in fact, it was: From the first hushed notes of Rachmaninoff’s “Trio élégiaque,” No. 1, to the almost ecstatic despair...