In this era of having to stretch resources and do more with less, one pair of musicians has succeeded in increasing productivity by exactly 50%. They have pushed their duo into trio territory and musical boundaries similarly fall by the wayside. While the violist, Molly Gebrian, remains devoted to her one instrument, the bump in yield is thanks to the super powers of Danny Holt who is equally adept at both piano and percussion, and with the normal number of limbs, deftly employs them and mental acrobatics to wild musical results. Holt’s integration of piano and percussion must be seen to be believed- ranging from incredibly subtle to absurdly virtuosic, pushing the performer to extremes. According to Holt, the idea “stems form my passion for innovation and what might be described as a sense of playful creative restlessness- a somewhat obsessive need to push myself beyond what I already know I am capable of.” Since there was previously no music for the unusual instrumentation of viola and solo piano/percussion, Gebrian and Holt have taken it upon themselves to build an entirely new repertoire. The half dozen works heard here on Trios for Two are among their commissions. The whole project is at once an innovative experiment, a beautiful and sometimes ridiculous spectacle, and alos the result of a twenty-year friendship.

With the development of a bourgeois music culture in Europe during the 18th century, the status of the dilettante changed as well. In courtly feudal society dilettante meant a musically educated member of the upper class. He was distinguished from the professional musician only by the fact that music was not his means of making a living. In the new society it becomes a term for the less musically competent, an amateur instrumentalist of vocalist, and quite distinct from the educated ‘connoisseur’ or professional musician. It is also evident that this type of person, who connects with music on a modest level, is the dominant part of the audiences that attend the emerging ‘concert’ entertainments. It is for this specific audience that an abundance of new compositions appeared, particularly in the area of chamber music. From the beginning of the century the flute was chief among the instruments preferred by enthusiasts, as well as the highly educated non-professional connoisseurs. The flute, in its late 17th century form, being a relatively ‘modern’ instrument – and a fashionable one - joined with the keyboards in a pivotal role. The previously dominant violin drifted more and more into the domain of professional musicians and virtuosos. And perhaps the sound of a flute, idiomatic of the human voice, was a more natural partner for the expression of bourgeois sensitivity than that of a violin. On this new release, flutists Hensgeorg Schmeiser and Jan Ostry, along with cellist Othmar Muller, present Haydn & Stamitz’s ‘London Trios.’

From the beginningss of free improvisation in the 1960's, proponents subjected their instruments to unprecedented interrogation, in pursuit of the instrumental impulse. This is shown in the work of Swiss-German trio Kimmig-Studer-Zimmerlin: Harald Kimming, Daniel Studer and Alfred Zimmerlin. On this recording, the instrumental impulse is exuberantly expressed, in what Studer prefers to call 'improvisation without any prefixed compositional tool'. The trio pull, grab and smack their strings, scratchign and striking the body of the instrument, using it as a resonator. These are not mere 'extended techniques'.'' (Andy Hamilton)

Over a few short years of the 1790's, Beethoven devoted special attention to a genre to which he would not return later in his life: the string trio. Five large-scale compositions would be the result. The first two, which are the subject of this recording, had likely been committed to paper by the time Beethoven travelled to Vienna to study with haydn. Their formal aspects alone seem to link them to the suite form of the Baroque more closely than the last three, in which Beethoven cultivated the classical sonata form, albeit somewhat removed from the essentially entertaining ''serenade style'' refined by Mozart.

For this recording of music by Buxtehude, Jonathan Cohen, founder of the ensemble Arcangelo, is joined by a distinguished trio, including two regulars on the Alpha label, Sophie Gent and Thomas Dunford, alongside the gambist Jonathan Manson. Although Dietrich Buxtehude is famous above all for his organ music and cantatas, and for the long journey the young Bach undertook to meet him, his chamber music is virtually unknown. In the mid-1690s, at the height of his fame, Buxtehude published two collections in rapid succession, each comprising seven sonatas for violin, viola da gamba and basso continuo. It is the works of the first collection (1694) – designated Opus 1 in the print – that Arcangelo has recorded here. These sonatas are characterized by pronounced experimental features in both the scoring and the handling of the instruments.

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REVIEWS:

Arcangelo makes the most of Buxtehude’s highly imaginative counterpoint, at times emphasizing the arresting dissonances and dramatic cadences that will remind more than a few listeners of similar moments in Bach’s chamber music.

– All Music Guide

A factor that has allowed Arcangelo to be so adaptable is the ever-effective policy of employing to-rate musicians; and, with violinist Sophie Gent and gambist Jonathan Manson proving master of this music’s sometimes virtuoso demands and Thomas Dunford among the most sought-after continuo lutenists of the moment, the standards here are as high as ever.

– Gramophone

This exquisitely balanced recording instantly captures the sense of conversation between the instrumental parts, highlighting the egalitarian approach of Buxtehude's melodic writing. What's more, the content of these conversations allows us to glimpse the composer's esteemed artistic stature in miniature.

– BBC Music Magazine

It remains an open question whether Bach’s six trio-sonatas fall into the category of keyboard music or chamber music. Bach adopted the then quite common form of the Italian trio-sonata not only for compositional but also for pedagogic reasons. It is also difficult to say how much of the musical material was written specifically for this cycle. At the same time they are exercises demanding an extremely high level of artistry in playing three independent voices with two hands and pedals. The student-originally in this particular case this was probably Wilhelm Friedemann Bach- is to learn thereby not only manual dexterity but also compositional technique. At first sight these pieces may look rather complex, but in fact the upper voices with their richly embellished lines proceed from a quite normal solid harmonic structure that is essentially a product of the basso continuo style. In addition, music for three independent voices provides an excellent opportunity for showing how an organ, with its distinct separate manual and pedal sections, can really sound like three different instruments simultaneously. This music is performed on The Organ of Joachim Wagner in Siedlce, an instrument discovered in 2002 in the village church in Pruszyn.

Bearthoven is small ensemble that has its roots in the Bang on a Can organization's Summer Music Festival at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art—known worldwide as a mecca for emerging composers of adventurous contemporary music. Comprised of Karl Larson (piano), Pat Swoboda (upright & electric bass) and Matt Evans (percussion & drumkit), the group started in name only as a cheeky tribute to Beethoven, and quickly took on the mission of making art music more accessible to a wider range of listeners than the traditional "classical music" crowd. Trios features the work of six young composers and serves as a living blueprint of Bearthoven's community. "Each of their individual voices is reflected in our identity as a trio," Larson explains. "When Bearthoven began, we were determined to build a new repertoire for our instrumentation; piano-bass-percussion trios are common in jazz, for example, but pieces for this format in the modern canon were virtually non-existent. So our goal in building this repertoire wasn't to cultivate a particular sound or style, but to act as a blank page for composers and give them the chance to project their distinct voices onto our ensemble."

Classical Music

Rubin Goldmark, the nephew of the famous Karl Goldmark, numbers among the countless composers from the last third of the nineteenth century whose names are no longer remembered today. While his uncle continues to enjoy a place in the concert world, Rubin Goldmark has not been granted this fate. Following the completion of his studies the twenty-one-year-old Goldmark assumed a teaching post at Jeannette Meyers Thurber’s National Conservatory of Music in Manhattan, where Dvorák, his earlier teacher, was the director. His melodically so very rewarding Piano Trio is to be situated in the direct Brahms succession and even that of Schumann. Viennese, Bohemian, and lively popular tones are clearly evident in this composition, which nonetheless freely develops without strictly adhering to potential models. In the Piano Trio composed by Felix Woyrsch in 1919 we repeatedly encounter elements offering glimpses of the twentieth century. However, this composition essentially remains a motivically concentrated, contrapuntally rich piece of work born of the spirit of the turn of the century. Woyrsch’s Four Songs op. 2 number among the songs for voice and piano with an obbligato solo instrument that have been sufficiently known in music history at the latest since Franz Schubert.

If the number of compositions written for a specific instrument is any indication of a predilection, then Ferdinand Ries did indeed have a soft place in his heart for the flute. He penned no fewer than six quartets for flute and string trio, a quintet for flute, violin, two violas, and violoncello, a trio for piano, flute and violoncello, and many works for flute and piano - more works than for any other wind instrument. His first Flute Quartet presents itself as a grand, imposing quartet in the affirmative key of C major and contains many surprising elements. Here too, as already in his symphonies and string quartets, Ries proves to be an entirely independent and original composer - despite his close association with Beethoven. The Ardinghello ensemble adheres undogmatically to historically informed performance practice. Karl Kaiser plays transverse flutes from the early nineteenth century. The string players perform on instruments with stringing and bows from around 1820.

This new release is the “boy jazz genius” Dominic J. Marshall’s debut album with Challenge Records. After studying classical piano for ten years, Dominic was awarded the Alan Hawkshaw scholarship to study jazz at Leeds College of Music. By summer 2010 his graduation recital had won him the LCM Piano Prize. His previous album Spirit Speech has been praised by many critics, and was nominated for an Edison Jazz International Award in 2014. On this release, Marshall uses two different rhythm sections and involves elements from electronic and hip-hop music, distinguishing his unique sound from other jazz pianists.

It was in devastation at the sudden death of his champion, idol and close friend Tchaikovsky that Sergei Rachmaninov wrote his Trio élégiaque No. 2 (op. 9) for piano, violin and cello in 1893. The work still clearly shows the young composer’s early artistic influences, while also featuring many of the key elements of his later masterly creations. As artist-in-residence with the Philharmonia Zurich, French pianist Lise de la Salle has already performed and recorded works by Rachmaninov for piano and orchestra, the latter on Philharmonia Records in 2015. She now follows this up with a studio recording of his Trio élégiaque No. 2 together with its smaller brother, Trio élégiaque No. 1. De la Salle interprets these rarely-recorded chamber music pieces together with Bartlomiej Niziol, first concertmaster and Claudius Herrmann, solo cellist of the Philharmonia Zurich.

Frederic Chopin’s Piano Trio op. 8 is one of his fully fledged masterpieces, even though the composer completed it at the young age of 19. Chopin wrote it between 1828-1829, during his studies at The Royal University of Warsaw under the aegis of his instructor for composition, Joseph Elsner. As the musicologist Maciej Galub remarked, Chopin felt he had to face three challenges as debuting composer: Appropriating the great form, then contending with the “brilliant” style of the piano compositions by his contemporaries Hummel, Weber or Ries, and finally establishing a national Polish musical idiom, for instance by using folk dances. In his piano trio, Chopin overcame these three challenges masterfully. The Piano Trio in B-flat major by Joseph Elsner, which is included on this release, was published in Vienna under the title “Grande Sonate pour le Clavecin ou Forte-piano avec Accompagnement d’un Violon et Violoncelle oblige.” Formally it corresponds to the model with three movements for the piano trios from Haydn and Mozart. The first movement is an energetic sonata allegro. This is followed by a melodic imaginative larghetto. The finale consists of a bright rondo, whose theme has folk-like features.

This new release from Trio Enescu follows their acclaimed debut album with GENUIN. Recently, the ensemble won First Prize at the International Chamber Music Competition Helexpo in Thessaloniki and Prize of the Austrian Brahms Society. This album features early piano trios by their namesake, George Ensecu, as well as Anton Arensky. Enescu’s work is especially intriguing, as it shows how passionate music written by a seventeen year old can be.

The title of this new release from GENUIN translates into “In memoriam of a great artist.” Each of the three piano trios featured on this album- from Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Goldenweiser- all share this subtitle. It is worth it to note that two of these pieces were dedicated to other composers included on this release. Rachmaninoff’s work is dedicated to the memory of Tchaikovsky, and Goldenweiser’s piece is dedicated to the memory of Rachmaninoff, tying all of these works together even more. Michael Shafer, Ilona Then-Bergh, and Wen-Sinn Yang make up the trio performing these works. These musicians are all familiar to audiences individually, and now their forces are joined to create a truly incredible listening experience.