As with the previous volumes in this series, Trio Gaspard has conceived a programme of contrasting trios that works as a standalone recital. The musicians have again included a contemporary work commissioned as part of the project – in this instance the world première recording of Kit Armstrong’s Revêtements. The earliest trio on the album – No. 12 – takes its form from the dance suite, with an opening allemande and concluding minuet framing a minor-key polonaise. Trio No. 19 which opens the programme features two contrasting movements in the same tonality – a spirited Vivace offset by a graceful minuet. The long and complex first movement of Trio No. 25 is followed by two shorter ones. Whilst the outer movements of Trio No. 43 sit firmly in C major, the A major central movement (with an extended central minor key section) displays yet another form of contrast. Trio Gaspard is regularly invited to major international concert halls across Europe and further afield. Highlights of the 2023 / 24 season will include a residency at Wigmore Hall, a performance of Beethoven’s ‘Triple’ Concerto with Uppsala Chamber Orchestra, and recitals in Firenze, Lucerne, Bern, Helsinki, Gateshead, and Heidelberg.

Berlin Stories is the first in a new series of recordings by the Trio Gaspard, based on different cultural capitals and composers associated with them. The album features three composers who lived and worked in Berlin for a period of their lives – for different reasons and in varying circumstances.

Mendelssohn’s grandfather, Moses, was a philosopher and leader of the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment, establishing a pre-eminent position for the family in Berlin, and creating the opportunities for both Felix and Fanny to realize their musical potential. The second piano trio is a perfects example of Mendelssohn’s style, combining a total mastery of classical structure and counterpoint with romantic sensibility. Moscow-born, but of Swiss parentage, Paul Juon came to Berlin in 1894 to study composition at the city’s foremost Conservatory, and remained in the city until he retired to Switzerland in 1934. Litaniae, his fourth piano trio, is unlike anything else in the piano trio repertoire. It is cast as a single movement and resembles Richard Strauss’s tone poems in scale and ambition. Greek composer Nikos Skalkottas, arrived in Berlin in 1921, and stayed until 1933. He studied composition with a number of leading tutors, before spending 5 years studying with Arnold Schoenberg. His eight variations exemplify his ability to combine serial composition with his native folk music. All the members of Trio Gaspard have lived or still live in Berlin and Berlin Stories expresses their love and admiration for this endlessly fascinating and invigorating metropolis.

REVIEW:

The playing in Mendelssohn’s Second Piano Trio is of quicksilver clarity but the musicians are equally alive to its stormy turbulence. Trio Gaspard highlights the surging, epic qualities in Juon’s Litaniae, and is fully committed to the piece’s almost unabating intensity.

-- The Strad

Described by Gramophone as ‘an album of joyous, imaginative music-making that whets the appetite for future instalments’, the first volume of the Trio Gaspard’s Haydn cycle was enthusiastically received by buyers and critics alike. As with that first volume, the Trio have designed a programme that works in its own right, and features trios from all periods of Haydn’s career. Three later works (nos. 33, 35 and 45) were all composed in 1794/5 contrast with the early trio no. 7 from 1760, whilst the trio no. 21 comes from the composer’s middle period, composed in 1784/5. The Gaspard choose to end the programme with another contemporary work reflective of the programme – in this instance For Gaspard by cellist-composer Leonid Gorokhov. Composed in two movements (as were several of Haydn’s trios) Hidden D (a play on words for the ‘Haydn D’ cello concerto) reworks numerous themes from that piece, among many others!

Founded in 2010, Trio Gaspard has become one of the most sought-after piano trios of its generation, whose members are praised for their unique and fresh approach to the score. The Trio is regularly invited to perform at leading concert halls throughout the world. It has an impressive history of international festival appearances, and each member also continues to pursue a successful solo career. Haydn has been central to the Trio’s repertoire since its inception, to the extent that it is rare for them to perform a program that does not include his music. For this survey of the complete Haydn Trios, pianist Nicholas Rimmer notes: ‘we have decided to record the trios neither chronologically nor in the groups in which they were first published. Instead, we have aimed to create an interesting and contrasted ‘program’ of trios for each volume, so that it can be listened to in a single, satisfying sitting. In addition, we have asked a composer to write a short work inspired by one of the trios from each volume, and we are excited by the contemporary perspectives on Haydn that these composers open up for us. This first album features a work by our good friend, the percussionist and composer Johannes Fischer. We hope that the listener will share in this rich journey – spanning forty years of Haydn’s life and more than forty brilliant works of music. Amazingly, each of these trios is unique enough to warrant individual attention and repeated listening.’

REVIEW:

The Trio Gaspard’s project to record the complete Haydn trios for Chandos gets off to a good start with five great works from the mid-1780s and mid-1790s. The Gaspard players like to keep the music sounding lively and spontaneous, and although their improvised runs and ornaments are discreet, this may not be to everyone’s taste.

-- BBC Music Magazine