David Matthews has become one of the UK's leading composers, both of symphonic and chamber music. One US reviewer described his string quartets as "musical thinking of the highest order and quartet writing in the great tradition of Beethoven, Bartok, Britten and Tippett" - influences that Matthews readily acknowledges. The three piano trios on this release evoke two other masters, since they have something of the drama of Shostakovich and the lyrical intensity of Vaughan Williams. All of these elements are drawn together in Matthews' own voice to make these works some of the most moving chamber music of recent years, in performances that the composer considers exemplary.