The piano trio began to be embraced by Estonian composers around the turn of the 20th century. Composers of that era, many of whom were educated in St. Petersburg, were greatly influenced by the then Russian capital’s rich musical life. Estonia’s own national musical awakening was later spearheaded by these very composers. The piano trio POLL-VAREMA-POLL was founded in 2013 by Mihkel Poll (piano), Mari Poll (violin) and Henry-David Varema (cello), and since then has performed in Europe as well as in Russia and China, at venues such as the Saint Petersburg Philharmonia and the Estonia Concert Hall. All three artists have prominent recital, orchestral, teaching careers and are recognized for their distinctive creative perspectives. They are enthusiastic champions of the piano trio genre, per-forming the widest possible range of repertoire from Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms to con-temporary composers. Works by Estonian com-posers including national classics Artur Lemba and Heino Eller, and modern-day composers such as Erkki-Sven Tüür, Arvo Pärt and Riho Esko Maimets have an important place in their concert programs.

trioTrio meets Sheila Jordan

This is the best Ihave ever written - so far, said Beethoven about the string trios op. 9. It is performed here by one of the most prominent chamber ensembles in the Nordic countries. The string trio ZilliacusPerssonRaitinen was formed in 1999 and is constantly exploring the compelling string trio repertoire, seeking as well to expand it by commissioning works. The trio frequently collaborates with other chamber musicians in forming various quartets and other ensembles. It has played with Bengt Forsberg, Per Tengstrand, Mikael Helasvuo, Christian Ihle Hadland, Martti Rousi, Christoffer Sundqvist and Martin Fröst, among others. In addition to it's own concert projects, the trio has performed at a variety of chamber music festivals. In Sweden, it has been a guest at the Lappland, Junsele, Båstad, Linköping and Grythyttan festivals, as well as at the special music events "Tengstrand 06" in Växjö and "MADE in Umeå" in Umeå. It has also played at the Åland, Turku and Korsholm festivals in Finland and at Bergen and Kristiansand in Norway.

HORN TRIOS by Brahms, Kahn, Koechlin and Dubois is an exciting album that brings together three renowned musicians in a splendid trio collaboration. Hornist Howard Wall has been for many years at the forefront of highly-respected horn players, not only as a long-time member of two of the world's preeminent symphony orchestras, but also as an avid chamber music instrumentalist and recording artist, praised for his "legendary low register" and "impeccable intonation and stellar virtuosity" by The Horn Call Magazine, which also noted that "every note is a gem" in recently released recordings of Howard Wall. Violinist Elmira Darvarova has been hailed as "marvelous, in the Heifetz tradition" (American Record Guide) and acclaimed for her "intoxicating tonal beauty and beguilingly sensuous phrasing" and "silky-smooth voluptuous tone" (The Strad, London). Pianist Shoko Inoue was lauded by the Cleveland Plain Dealer as "a pianist who immerses heart, soul and everything into her generous artistry, with supremely sensitive and evocative playing." This album brings thrilling and exhilarating interpretations of four gorgeous works for horn, violin and piano, one of which has been, for over 150 years, among the greatest ever masterpieces in the history of Western music, while two of the other works on this album - the glorious 1912 Trio Cantabile by Th�odore Dubois, and the boisterous 1922 Serenade Op. 73 by Robert Kahn are presented on this album as only the second-ever commercially-released recordings of these works. Charles Koechlin's eclectic suite Quatre Petite Pi�ces is a haunting and poignant quasi-impressionistic collection of four miniatures, that alternate, as in a kaleidoscope, contrasting atmospheric moods and degrees of sorrow and peaceful introspection. This marvelous album is an irresistible addition to the recorded repertoire, both for it's contents as well as for the verve and exultation of the interpretations of these outstanding artists.

In February 2020, on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of Johann Nepomuk David’s birth, the Upper Austrian David Trio recorded his complete string trios. David’s chamber music is distinguished by a great variety of ensemble forms. Although he also composed for rare and unusual combinations of two or more instruments, in the field of chamber composition he most frequently wrote for the string trio (at least among his published works). The equality of three instruments from the same tonal family (i. e., the lack of hierarchies of transmitted role assignments) may have motivated him to compose for this ensemble form without feeling burdened by conventions. With a subtle tonal sense he produces finely dimensioned, almost orchestral effects as well as forcefully nuanced details, and at the same time he is very well informed about remote tonal effects and rare playing techniques and succeeds in using them to meet his goals. A special feature: each trio is dedicated to one of the prominent Italian violinmakers.

REVIEW:

David is a composer not to be ignored. There’s much to enjoy here, and the David-Trio are to be lauded for their ardent championing of these elusive works. Beautifully recorded, the CPO engineers have achieved an agreeable balance between the three instrumentalists. These compelling scores are a welcome addition to the catalogue.

— MusicWeb International

The 6 Piano Trios of W. A. Mozart, which were composed in the years 1776, 1786 and 1788, already show the increasing emancipation of the string instruments – while in the first work (1776) the keyboard instrument still predominates, and the two strings take on a more accompanying role, even though in some cases a distinctive one, the relationship between the instruments developed in the five works of the 1780s lead to an approximate equality. The peculiarity of this new recording is that for the first time the autographs, some of which have only recently become available, have been taken into account, which has brought about some changes compared to the previously printed sheet music editions, especially in the area of phrasing and articulation, and thus, the Vienna Mozart-Trio presents an authentic complete recording for the first time with this 2-album set.

This second recording of our anniversary season lifts the veil on a Belgian composer who is far too little known: D�sir� P�que. A precursor of Arnold Sch�nberg, his musical style is characterized by the use of an almost atonal polytonality, without being locked into one or another musical system. In terms of form, he is the inventor of a constructional procedure which he himself called 'constant addition' and which consists of a permanent thematic increase, in other words the constant addition of new musical ideas, which are not subject to development, transformation or return. But the most important thing to remember about D�sir� P�que's music is his passionate temperament, which is constantly expressed. He was first and foremost a romantic composer.

Ludwig van Beethoven left only a few works for the string trio, and, unlike his quartets, they are played far too seldomly. The Trio Boccherini now presents a complete recording of these trios on the GENUIN label to draw attention to this. The program includes Beethoven's first two works in this genre, the Trio op. 3 and the Serenade op. 8. Ranging between evening entertainment and the concert hall, between music from his youth and maturity, the works are in any case true Beethoven: full of spirit, profound and with great élan! The Trio Boccherini plays historically informed without being dogmatic, technically sophisticated without being hard-nosed – in other words, with passion and verve!

The American composer Christian Wolff (b. 1934) is the last living representative of the New York School (Rauschenberg, Rothko, etc.). Wolff was not even an adult when he studied with Grete Sultan and John Cage. Wolff’s music was much more politically motivated than that of Feldman and Cage, which is evident on this new WERGO album by Trio Accanto. The album features first recordings made in close collaboration with Wolff in the studios of Deutschlandfunk Cologne/Germany. Wolff's great “Trio IX – Accanto” (2017) is a testament to his long-standing friendship with the musicians. Peculiarly serene and unobtrusively narrative, the piece features many reminiscences and hidden quotations from music by J. S. Bach to union songs. There are also tributes to Wolff's own “Exercises”, whose more recent numbers can be heard on the album as well. These “Exercises” sound lucid and atmospheric, yet complex. Each player has to decide for himself/herself on the course of the musical thoughts and spontaneously put them together in the group as an exercise. Collective agreement for individual positions as a musical and social task. This music by Wolff “still sings a longer modernism”, writes Seth Brodsky. “You can hear the historical horizon in it, not as some grandiose prophecy, but like an outline full of white space. The music is interested in the grace of presentness, of being-here, but it doesn’t lack desire.”

British composer Michael Head (1900–1976) initially studied piano with Jean Adair, a student of famous Clara Schumann, and vocal performance with Fritz Marston. It was only in 1919 that he began studying composition in the class of Prof. Frederick Corder after he had been admitted to the Royal Academy of Music in London as a Sir Michael Costa scholarship holder. After completing his education, Head lectured at that university for many years. Peter Hope, born in 1930, is another representative of the British school of composers on the present album, also known under the pseudonym William Gardner. He gained fame as an outstanding arranger (he worked with the BBC Concert Orchestra on a number of occasions and orchestrated pieces by composers linked to the American film industry, e.g. John Williams, James Horner, or Laurence Rosenthal). Despite the fact that he has dealt mainly with arrangements and transcriptions throughout his career, his compositional output can be considered impressive. André Previn (1929–2019), an American artist, is mainly associated as a world-famous conductor, pianist, and promoter of outstanding violinist Anne--Sophie Mutter. In this context, his compositional out-put seems to be unjustly forgotten. An international composer, Daniel Baldwin’s music has been performed around the globe in Canada, Italy, Germany, Japan, China, Belgium, and Australia, just to name a few. His music is published exclusively by Imagine Music Publishing, through which he is the editor of a band/orchestra/choir series titled "The Pathways Series".

Master of 18th century French opera, Rameau wrote for the stage for three decades (1733-1764). His thirty or so operatic works give considerable space to the haute-contre voice, the quintessence of most of the title roles: Platée, Dardanus, Hippolyte, Pygmalion… Mathias Vidal, a brilliant representative of this haute-contre tessitura, is one of its foremost specialists. Having sung the majority of Rameau’s operas on stage, he is an obvious paradigm of their characters. Together with Gaétan Jarry, he has conceived a programme of the most dazzling and expressive arias, to which have been added scenes accompanied by a chorus. This anthology brings to the fore the radiant voice of this pillar of the Royal Opera of Versailles. For this passionate singer of the French repertory, to record a recital dedicated to Pierre de Jelyotte, Rameau’s haute-contre, makes the theatricality of his music resound to a thrilling climax!

The twice-Grammy-nominated Lincoln Trio ― violinist Desirée Ruhstrat, cellist David Cunliffe, and pianist Marta Aznavoorian ― offers engaging, rarely heard piano trios by 20th-century Chicago composers Leo Sowerby, winner of the Rome Prize and Pulitzer Prize for music, and Ernst Bacon, recipient of three Guggenheim Fellowships and a Pulitzer Fellowship. Bacon’s Trio No. 2 for Violin, Cello and Piano (1987) receives its world-premiere recording. Hailed by The New York Times as “a Composer Known for Echoing America,” Bacon infuses his six-movement trio with American influences including marches, folksong-like melodies, and jazz rhythms, validating Virgil Thomson’s assessment of Bacon’s music as “full of melody and variety; honest and skillful and beautiful.” Sowerby’s Trio for violin, violincello and pianoforte (1953) is “a work of tremendous integrity” that exhibits an “imposing structure, contrapuntal gymnastics, and a concern for instruments sounding as good as they can” (Classical Net). Sometimes virtuosic, sometimes reflective, the work is distinguished by an ever-evolving rhythmic and harmonic interplay between instruments.

REVIEW:

The works heard here by the "Early Modern" native Chicago composers Ernst Bacon (1898-1990) and Leo Sowerby (1895-1968) have several stylistic commonalities between them: both rich in melodic zest, expressionist on the edge of Romanticism but further afield to the Modern in their arcs of harmonic-melodic movement, winding, and labyrinthian. Working together most impressively, the members of the Lincoln Trio approach both pieces with elan, zeal, and sympathy. If you are up for something well composed and well played, something from the recent past yet unmistakably belonging to that time, grab this and I think you’ll find it worthwhile.

– Gapplegate Classical

“I am glad that together with the following artists: Marcin Halat, Piotr Lato and Marcin Maczynski, we undertook the premiere recording of two piano trios by Karol Rathaus: Trio, op. 53 from 1944 and Trio Serenade, op. 69 from 1953. Metaphorically speaking, reading a manuscript is like touching the reality of the composer himself, his thoughts, emotions and events from a world that surrounded him and that he missed, but still a world we can recreate thanks to interpretations of forgotten works. The main idea behind the whole process of being with Karol Rathauss piano trios, from reading the manuscripts to recording the compositions, is primarily the desire to discover the composers aim and read his intentions. The overriding idea was to show the listener the characteristic language of the artist and to create an individual work of art at the level of a piano trio. An intimate encounter with Karol Rathaus’s top class compositional art allowed us, the performers, to notice him: a brilliant, forgotten artist, an emigrant, whose output combines Polish, European, and American elements.” (Aleksandra Halat)

On January 23, 2021, the music world celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the death of Władysław Żeleński, the founder and long-time director of the Music Conservatory in Kraków, and one of the most outstanding representatives of the Romantic era in Poland. This album contains studio recordings of two great chamber works, showing the excellent compositional technique of the Polish composer. Recordings of both works make us aware of the enormous potential of Żeleński as a composer. What's more, each of the pieces, despite the apparent simplicity and formal transparency, is marked by a large dose of individualism and expressive and social distinctiveness. All this makes the above-mentioned works by Żeleński one of the greatest showpieces in the history of chamber music in the world.

100 years of Astor Piazzolla! To mark the birthday of the Argentinian tango legend, brothers Claudio and Oscar Bohórquez are releasing an album together with Piazzolla's contemporary and ensemble colleague Gustavo Beytelmann - Piazzolla: Patagonia Express on the Berlin Classics label. The trio sets about playing part of Piazzolla's legacy alongside repertoire composed by Beytelmann, leading the listener on a journey to the impassioned and mysterious world of the tango. Boisterous, powerful and unique: Piazzolla's music is highly versatile, deeply rooted in the tango tradition and yet always driven by curiosity and the search for modernity. His works are complex and demanding, and he reflects more than any other composer of his time the special musical language of that era. It is not possible to categorize his oeuvre as classical or popular music. Jazz and Brazilian music influences blend with folklore from the 1950s and 60s; tango is aligned with Bachian counterpoint, rhythm converges with profusely lyrical passages. The diversity of Piazzolla's style comes out on this album too. In addition to his traditional pieces like Le Grand Tango works such as Milonga del ángel and Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas can be heard. It is interesting to note that the "four seasons" were originally not conceived as a suite, but composed at different times and in various contexts. Piazzolla himself never performed them as one entity. The motive for embarking on this album project was the encounter of Claudio and Oscar Bohórquez with Gustavo Beytelmann. "His rustic Argentinian manner, his musical and personal flights of fancy, plus the experience of having shared the stage with Astor Piazzolla so many times... all of that gave the decisive impetus to record this album," the brothers explain.