A MusicWeb Internaional Recording Of The Month

Somehow this series had escaped my attention and that of my fellow reviewers at MusicWeb International. In my defence, as surveyor of the piano trio repertoire, I did say that I couldn’t possibly hope to cover all recordings of the big names.

Naming your ensemble after a famous composer, especially one whose works you have chosen to begin your recording career, does create something of an expectation of a “special” relationship. Violinist Verena Stourzh has “form” here, as she was a member of the Haydn Trio Eisenstadt until its disbanding in 2010. I’m pleased to report that in this volume at least, TrioVanBeethoven does have a special relationship with the great one, as they have given us stunningly good performances here.

Beethoven’s piano trios, for me, are the least stormy, most cheerful of his output. In part, this may be due to their relatively early composition. Even the final, and perhaps greatest of them - the Archduke, op. 97 - was written in his middle period. There are none to parallel the ground-breaking late quartets and piano sonatas.

The two complete works presented here are among his sunniest. His three Opus 1 trios are very much in the mould of Haydn and Mozart, and are considered by some to be lesser works. Mature Beethoven they may not be, but I have a great deal of affection for them, and especially No. 2. No. 6 may be somewhat dwarfed by those chronologically before (Ghost) and after (Archduke) but is still a great work.

My yardstick for the Beethoven trios is the Florestan Trio (review) and that remains so, despite the very significant impression that TrioVanBeethoven has made on me here. The Florestans give a brilliant performance, and I employ that adjective for both its meanings: splendid/excellent and glittering/bright. TrioVanBeethoven give a more genial and spacious reading of both works, especially Op. 1/2, where they take almost three minutes more. This is a smiling, playful even relaxed Beethoven, not necessarily adjectives normally applied to him, but not out of place in this work. Trio No. 6 is taken similarly, though the difference to the Florestans is less here. In case you begin to think these are old-fashioned big Romantic performances, let me assure you that they are not. There is nothing heavy about them; somehow TrioVanBeethoven have managed to balance a lightness of touch with a sense of repose. They provide a quite complementary view to the Florestans, whose brilliance might even be too dazzling, depending on your mood.

The sound quality lives up to the performances: immediate, natural and without any extraneous breathing or mechanical noises. When you factor in informative liner notes, you have the complete package. I’m off to buy Volumes 1 & 2, and I look forward to Volume 4 – may it not take too long to arrive.

– MusicWeb International (David Barker)

Classical Music

This release is the debut album of Trio Aleksic, made up of Serbian siblings Aleksa, Nadezda, and Ana Aleksic. Since their inception in 2005, the ensemble has made appearances on a number of chamber music stages in Austria. The group holds interest in bringing little-known composers into the limelight. For this release, they have chosen string trios by Beethoven, Herzogenberg, and Dohnanyi.

Franz Schubert composed the works on this release at the peak of his career, just before his untimely death at age 31. These works display both his rapture of music making, and his melancholy farewell. These works are presented on a two-disc set, performed by Rachmaninov Trio Moscow. Rachmaninov Trio Moscow is Mikhail Tsinman, Natalia Savinova, and Victor Yampolsky. The group’s interpretation of Russian favorites has already been well received, and they meet the challenge of Schubert’s virtuosity with ease.

This is the debut CD from TrioSono, a trio made up of members of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Dresden Staatskapelle.+ The three piano trios on this album are from three composers from different stylistic periods- Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), Friedrich Schneider (1786-1853), and August Klughardt (1847-1902). Schneider’s Klaviertrio in Es-Dur op. 38 and Klughardt’s Klaviertrio in B-Dur op. 47 are receiving their world premiere recordings on this release.

Only a little chamber music for flute by Beethoven has survived. He was not particularly fond of this instrument. However, he managed to pen an elegant, nimble Serenade, op. 25, which the Ardinghello Ensemble is now releasing along with a new rendering of the magnificent String Trio op. 3.

For the Ardinghello Ensemble Beethoven stands at the beginning of an epoch of special interest. The four instrumentalists performing with Karl Kaiser – all of them women – very undogmatically operate with insights provided by historical performance practice and set out in quest of the “Faraway Sound” of romanticism - while discovering unheard-of and never-expected material.

Bach: Suite in C Minor, BWV 997 & Trio Sonatas Nos. 1, 2 & 5

The first piece to be decided was Box Balaenae by George Crumb. This composition, embellished with theatrical elements that break down the boundaries between genres, has for some time now been part of Trio Wiek's repertoire and has therefore been made the cornerstone of this program. It is around this piece that all the other recordings are centered. As pianist Florian Wiek reports, it would be futile to search for a universal musicological term to sum up this selection. Indeed, "the repertoire for flute trio is limited" and - from an audience perspective, at least - there are few classics written for this highly unusual formation.

The Clarigotto Duo presents a collection of Romantic works transcribed for the unusual combination of clarinet and bassoon and joined by piano on the trio selections in an aurally fascinating glimpse at the sonic possibilities of these two instruments, so closely allied in orchestral settings yet seldom present within chamber settings.

The series, the first of it's kind to occur on American soil since 1971, may be approaching it's conclusion, but the plaudits keep coming in for the Mendelssohn Piano Trio's multi-volume Joseph Haydn complete Piano Trio series, now at it's sixth volume with this release. Founded 1997, the Trio has performed over 500 concerts across the globe and more seen the release of more than a dozen albums, much of it, as here, released on the Centaur label. "... beautifully measured - warm, sonorous and lively - and the recording is very natural and spacious." (Audiophilia; Haydn: Vol. 4 (CRC 3392))

Studies in Rome equipped Francisco Ant�nio de Almeida for high musical standing at the court of the Portuguese King, Jo�o V. Here he wrote a series of admired operas but also embarked on serenades', court spectacles of a more private nature. Il Trionfo d'Amore, a scherzo pastoral, was written to celebrate the King's name-day. Ranging from intimacy to ceremonial splendor, with several sublime arias, not least the beautiful In queste lacrime, as well as dramatic passages, it reveals de Almeida to be one of the outstanding Portuguese composers of the eighteenth century.

CHARLES LOOS TRIO: En public au travers

The Moravian-born Jewish composer Gideon Klein (1919-45) composed his final work, the String Trio (1944) while interned in Theresienstadt. + Quite a few of his works written there are based on Czech folksongs; his string trio falls into this category. + Jewish composer Josef Koffler (1896-1944) suffered a similarly tragic fate as Klein. + His Trio, op. 10 (1928) was written, however, when he was Prof. of Harmony and Atonal Composition in Lviv (Lemberg). + The Trio in D Major by Ernst Neumann (1832-1910) is a work from 1883. + The Eos Trio Frankfurt is keen to bring forgotten or unknown works back to audiences.

This recording is the first by Trio Dali with Jack Liebeck, the ensemble’s new violinist. • After a Ravel program in 2009 followed by a disc devoted to Schubert, the Trio turns its talents to Felix Mendelssohn’s two trios, the popular op. 49 in D minor (1839), a work Robert Schumann dubbed ‘the modern masterpiece in the trio genre’, the tragedy-to-triumph characterized C minor op. 66, and two Bach transcriptions. • The Trio Dali has thus chosen to contrast Mendelssohn’s two trios with works by a composer for whose rediscovery Mendelssohn was largely responsible in his time: J.S. Bach.

The series, the first of its kind to occur on American soil since 1971, may be approaching its conclusion, but the plaudits keep coming in for the Mendelssohn Piano Trio’s multi-volume Joseph Haydn complete Piano Trio series, now at its fifth volume with this release. Founded 1997, the Trio has performed over 500 concerts across the globe and has at present a 15-disc discography, much of it, as here, released on the Centaur label. “…beautifully measured – warm, sonorous and lively – and the recording is very natural and spacious.” (Audiophilia; Haydn: Vol. 4 (CRC 3392))