Engage, Exchange, Connect. That is what this young American piano trio is all about, on stage as well as on this album, it's very first. Experience the group at it's revelatory best in these idiomatic and fresh interpretations of early-twentieth-century American piano trios, by Foote, Korngold and Bernstein. As reported by WXQR radio, "Neave is actually a Gaelic name meaning 'bright' and 'radiant', both of which certainly apply to this trio's music making." Praised for their "heart-on-sleeve performances" (Classical New Jersey), the Neave Trio has been described as "A consummate ensemble" (Palm Beach Daily News), "A revelation" (San Diego Story), and "A brilliant trio..." (MusicWeb International), one that has "exceeded the gold standard and moved on to platinum" (Fanfare).

The first female Professor at the Paris Conservatoire, the first female player in the Queen's Hall Orchestra and the first female American Symphonist to be published. The Neave Trio celebrate these three outstanding pioneers on this captivating album. Since forming in 2010, Neave Trio - violinist Anna Williams, cellist Mikhail Veselov, and pianist Eri Nakamura - has earned enormous praise for it's engaging, cutting-edge performances. WQXR explains, "'Neave' is actually a Gaelic name meaning 'bright' and 'radiant', both of which certainly apply to this trio's music making." The Boston Musical Intelligencer included Neave in it's "Best of 2014" and "Best of 2016" roundups, writing, "it is inconceivable that they will not soon be among the busiest chamber ensembles going," and "their unanimity, communication, variety of touch, and expressive sensibility rate first tier."

Hailed by the magazine BBC Music for it's 'generous and warm-hearted, utterly beguiling playing', the GRAMMY�-nominated Neave Trio has emerged as one of the finest young ensembles of it's generation. For this, their eighth album, they have once again selected a programme of works by female composers. Written in 1846, the Piano Trio of Clara Schumann was considered a great success by her friends and supporters (notably by Brahms) but her lack of self-confidence clouded her own view of the piece. Intellectually curious and a voracious reader from an early age, Dora Pejacevic was largely self-taught as a composer. She composed her first piano trio (in D major) in 1905 (when she was twenty) and the second followed in 1910, by which time Pejacevic's musical language had already evolved into it's distinctive late-romantic style. Chaminade's Piano Trio No. 2 in A minor was published 1887, with a dedication to the great French cellist Jules Delsart. The successful premiere had been given at the Salle �rard on 4 February 1886. Chaminade went on to play the A minor Trio regularly during the 1890s, to substantial critical acclaim.

The Neave Trio's new album celebrates French works for piano trio, focussing on three works composed around the turn of the twentieth century. Saint-Saens's Piano Trio No. 2 dates from 1892 and comprises five movements. Unusually for Saint-Saens, the work took a great deal of time from conception to completion (over five years) and then went through a number of revisions before Saint-Saens was finally satisfied. Mel Bonis's two pieces Soir and Matin, whilst on a smaller scale, are equally powerful works, bridging the worlds of romanticism and impressionism. The first piece is dominated by a cantabile melody, whilst Matin is more chromatic and harmonically complex. The album concludes with Sally Beamish's arrangement of Debussy's orchestral masterpiece La Mer. This three-movement symphonic work presented Beamish with an exceptional challenge, as she strove to 'reinvent Debussy's orchestral score with the piano trio in mind... This meant exploring what strings and piano can do in terms of texture, and concentrating on idiomatic and natural techniques.' By studying and recreating Debussy's colours and textures, rather than attempting to transcribe every note, Beamish produced an arrangement that presents the performers and listeners with a completely new perspective on these well-loved seascapes.

The Neave Trio's program Rooted features a range of works based on folk music. Smetana's distinctive nationalistic style was largely based on the inclusion of bohemian rhythmic and melodic elements, and he was acclaimed in his native Bohemia as the father of Czech music. His Trio in G minor was composed in 1855 as a response to the death of his four-year old daughter and shows the influence of Liszt. Josef Suk was a favorite pupil of Dvorak's, and his early Piano Trio, whilst shorter in length and less intense than Smetana's, is embedded in that Czech tradition. Also deeply influenced by Dvorak, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was inspired by his African heritage, as well, and his Twenty-Four Negro Melodies for Piano was a prime example of his research. He subsequently arranged five of these pieces into the suite for piano trio that we hear on this album. The program concludes with Frank Martin's Trio from 1925, which is based on traditional Irish melodies.

REVIEWS:

These four chamber works explore music of a definitive national identity. The members of the ensemble brandish their considerable skills in the service of otherwise neglected composers and scores, with astonishing brilliance in their recorded sound.

— Audiophile Audition

The program's characteristically eclectic mix of works nurtures the Trio's well-upholstered warmth, attention to detail, and compelling rapport.

— BBC Music Magazine

In a follow-up to its extremely successful album Her Voice, the Neave Trio on A Room of Her Own once again champions the works of female composers. The only non-French composer on the album is Ethel Smyth whose Piano Trio, one of her earliest works, was composed in 1880. Like many of her works from this era, it shows a clear nod to the Austro-German influences of her studies in Leipzig, particularly of Brahms. Cecile Chaminade was born just a year before Smyth, and her First Piano Trio was written in the same year as Smyth’s. The Paris première was very well received by the critics, and the Trio was published a year later. Germaine Tailleferre’s Piano Trio began life in 1916 – 17 as a work in three movements, and then gathered dust for over sixty years, until a commission from France’s Ministère de la Culture, in 1978, enabled Tailleferre to revive and re-imagine it. By then in her mid-eighties, Tailleferre replaced the original second movement and added a fourth. The Trio is an excellent example of her compositional style – a voice that remained consistent though her long compositional career. Lili Boulanger’s D’un matin de printemps and D’un soir triste are perhaps now better known in their orchestral versions: this recording proves that the two pieces work equally well at either scale. As they are among the last compositions of her short life (she died of chronic illness at twenty-four), we are left to imagine what she might have written had she lived longer.

REVIEW:

These chamber works are still not in the mainstream. The Neave Trio put their case eloquently.

-- The Guardian (U.K.)

A 2023 GRAMMY Nominee for Best Chamber Performance!

Hailed by the magazine BBC Music for its ‘generous and warm-hearted, utterly beguiling playing’, the Neave Trio has emerged as one of the finest young ensembles of its generation. It has been praised by WQXR Radio in New York City for its ‘bright and radiant music making’, described by The Strad as having ‘elegant phrasing and deft control of textures’, and praised by The New York Times for its ‘excellent performances’. Here, the trio presents a program of music connected by the theme of Remembrance.

Rachmaninoff’s early first piano trio was inspired by Tchaikovsky’s trio in A minor, and shows illuminating glimpses of the mature composer to come. The elegiac mood of Rachmaninoff’s work is matched by that of Brahms’s first trio – again an early composition – which was inspired by the composer’s (unrequited) feelings for Clara Schumann.

Ravel’s only piano trio was composed in 1914, as France was being drawn into the horrors of the first world war. Ravel draws extensively on the rhythms and forms of his native Basque musical traditions, while the title of the second movement, ‘Pantoum’, refers to a form of traditional Malaysian poetry which typically deals with two separate themes in alternation, a feature to which Ravel responds with a series of contrasting themes and textures.