Das Jacques Thibaud Streichtrio [gestaltet] mit mustergültiger Transparenz und nie erlahmender Klangintensität. [...] Wie sie das von virtuosen Pizzicati beherrschte Scherzo meistern, [...] ist preisverdächtig.

Bachs zweite Partita verwandelt [Anda] in eine fesselnde Story, spielt verwegen mit Tempi, Licht und Farben, und durchglüht die höfische Etikette mit Sprengsätzen des Sinnlichen. [...] Nach diesem Album versteht man, warum viele Experten diesen Pianisten für einen Zauberer hielten.

Pierre Fournier made a number of appearances at the Lucerne Festival and this release provides examples of three such visits given over a 14-year period between 1962 and 1976. There’s an excellently written booklet to go with it.

One of the works with which he was most associated was Dvořák’s Concerto. His recording with Szell in 1962 for DG is probably the most well-known example, but those sympathetic to more intimate and introspectively collaborative rapport will probably gravitate to the less well-recorded but beautiful 1948 recording with Rafael Kubelík conducting the Philharmonia. There’s compelling evidence that he habitually took the finale a notch or two faster in concerts than in the studio – for evidence turn to the Szell-directed Cologne broadcast of November 1962 (on MM028-2) or to the powerful reading with Georges Sebastian in Prague in 1959 with the Czech Philharmonic (Arlecchino 169). This Lucerne broadcast has the significant advantage of Istvan Kertesz directing one of the major works of the composer that he was never able to record in the studio. Fournier tended to establish tempi in the first movement, although Sebastian seemed to drive him fast in Prague – and whilst there was clearly some room for latitude elsewhere in the concerto, notably so with Szell in Cologne in the slow movement, this is a standard Fournier tempo. French cellists seldom fell into the trap of drawn-out sentimentality in this work; their approach was one of dignity, though never hauteur. No one was a more dignified exponent of this work than Fournier whose bowing remained supple and unshowy, and whose tonal resources were never placed at the altar of flamboyant display. Concentrated and focused, and warmly expressive there are a few metrical displacements that momentarily imperil co-ordination with Kertesz, but they are trivial in the context. The winds are forward, orchestral pizzicati register well and the sound-stage is excellently preserved. This isn’t as intimate a performance as the one he recorded in 1948 but it has huge virtues of its own, not least the way Fournier, the great chamber player, responds to the wind soliloquys in the slow movement and fines down his tone in response to them. The brass is at its best in this movement as well. The finale works splendidly, with Fournier making a characteristic small but telling slide at the most apposite moment. Kertesz directs here, and throughout, with flair and authority.

There are no surprises discographically, either, in the next work, the Saint-Saëns A minor Concerto, with Jean Martinon in 1962. He’d recorded this back in 1947 with Walter Susskind in London, and it’s one of the works to be found in retrospectives devoted to the cellist. The balance between solo cello and orchestra is a bit cruder here than in the Dvořák as it places the cello quite far forward. In the Dvořák it was more meshed with the orchestral sound, without ever being drowned. His tone, as a result, sounds just a bit more nasal than one is used to. Martinon directs the RTF well, though it sounds pretty much Fournier’s show, with the cellist leading fluently into the central Allegretto with great facility. There’s no sense of him coasting and a very few cello squeals in the finale attest to his spirit of adventure. Audience applause is retained.

It’s Fournier himself who introduces his Casals encore, given at the festival in September 1976. His playing is once again refined and avoids any hint of the overwrought. Fournier has the support of the Festival Strings Lucerne directed by Matthias Bamert.

Though these live performances are, in a sense, ancillary to his studio legacy they do represent some exceptionally fine performances. Additionally admirers of Kertesz will find he is as perceptive a Dvořákian in the concerto as he was in the symphonies and tone poems.

Sie arbeiten seit über 15 Jahren zusammen und gehören mittlerweile zu den renommiertesten Ensembles ihrer Heimat. Die Rede ist von Angela Golubeva, Violine, Sébastien Singer, Violoncello und Martin Lucas Staub, Klavier, die gemeinsam das Schweizer Klaviertrio bilden. Nachdem sie sich in ihren früheren Veröffentlichungen unter anderem Werken von Schumann, Tschaikowsky oder Mendelssohn-Bartholdy widmeten, starteten die drei Schweizer nun eine Gesamtaufnahme der Beethoven-Klaviertrios.

Schon in seinem ersten Klaviertrio in Es-Dur, op. 1,1 hob Ludwig van Beethoven die Gattung auf ein neues Niveau. Während das Klaviertrio in früherer Zeit Klavier und Cello für den Generalbass zusammenband, behandelte Beethoven alle drei Instrumente gleichberechtigt. Das ungemein homogen, musikantisch lustvoll und zugleich durchsichtig fein zusammen spielende Schweizer Klaviertrio stellt Beethovens frühestes Klaviertrio aus dem Jahr 1795 seinem letzten von 1814 gegenüber. Während man dem klassisch ausgewogen proportionierten Opus 1 noch die Nähe zu Haydn und Mozart anhört, weist das 20 Jahre später komponierte Klaviertrio in B-Dur, op. 97 mit seiner starken Expressivität und seinem orchestral ausgreifenden Klangreichtum deutlich in die Romantik.

Klassisch ausgewogen

Mit virtuosem Schwung, aber auch mit delikater Intimität musizieren die Schweizer selbst die kleinsten Details dieser Kammermusik-Pretiosen. So individuell jedes Ensemblemitglied in den solistischen Partien auch glänzt – die drei Musiker bleiben doch immer in geradezu organischer Einheit miteinander verbunden. Klassisch ausgewogen, ohne übertriebenes Schwelgen oder allzu eigenwillige Ausdrucksgesten gestaltet das Schweizer Klaviertrio auch das lyrisch innige Andante von Beethovens letztem Klaviertrio, dem sogenannten "Erzherzog"-Trio. Zudem besticht das Klangbild der ersten Folge des auf fünf CDs angelegten Aufnahmeprojekts durch seine Wärme, sein Volumen und seine Transparenz. Fazit: Die drei vom Schweizer Klaviertrio sind bravourös gestartet und man kann schon gespannt sein auf die Fortsetzung ihrer Gesamtaufnahme von Beethovens Klaviertrios.

Sans doute une occasion à saisir d’amener les novices à découvrir et se complaire dans l’univers beethovénien intemporel. On attend
avec impatience le second volume.

In recent issues, I’ve been extolling the virtues of the Trio Élégiaque for its five-disc Beethoven piano trios intégrale on Brilliant Classics, and not only for some of the best playing I’ve heard in these works, but for truly the most complete survey of the composer’s output for this combination of instruments.

Here now we have what is labeled “Beethoven Complete Works for Piano Trio, Volume 1” from the Swiss Piano Trio, another estimable ensemble I’ve had occasion to shower with praise—see reviews under Mendelssohn in 34:6, Tchaikovsky in 36:3, Schumann in 36:6, and Edward Franck in 38:1. It remains to be seen, however, if the Swiss Piano Trio’s Beethoven compilation will be as complete as the Trio Élégiaque’s, but considering that I’ve already acclaimed the Swiss Piano Trio one of the best currently active ensembles of its makeup on the planet, I expected nothing less than masterful performances of Beethoven’s first and last piano trios paired on this disc, and nothing less than that is what I got.

When it comes to the “Archduke” Trio, as regular readers are bound to know, I judge a performance based almost wholly on the closing moments of the Andante variations movement. For me, this is music in which the fingers of Adam and God reaching out to touch each other in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling panel actually meet. It’s one of those sublime Beethoven moments in which feelings of exultation, ecstasy, and awe come together to convey a sense of beatific bliss, as the veil parts and we’re permitted, if only for a brief moment, to know the unknowable. This, at least, is the effect the music has on me beginning in bar 141 at the Tempo I marking, continuing through that breathtaking cello crescendo in bar 172, to the right-hand piano octaves beginning in bar 178.

I know the initial movement marking is Andante cantabile ma però con moto, but the opening measures establish the mood, and they have to project a feeling of reverence and wonderment at the mystery that will be revealed at the end. Too slow isn’t good, but too con moto is worse, for it diminishes the sense of solemnity. Beethoven’s ma però instruction is syntactically strange, being an almost self-cancelling redundancy. Ma means “but,” però means “though.” Why not just Andante cantabile ma con moto, or Andante cantabile però con moto? Instead he writes “but though,” as if he’s a bit hesitant about the con moto: “But though…hmm…maybe I’m not so sure about the ‘with motion’ part after all.”

This is how I take it, and apparently so do the Swiss Piano Trio’s players, for their opening is quite broad and suffused with just the sort of reverence and wonderment I want to hear. Obviously, we’re on the same page when it comes to the interpretation of this movement. It remains only for the players to send a shiver up my spine in the movement’s concluding bars, and this they do with unerring musical instinct. Not surprisingly, the ensemble’s reading of the rest of the trio is equally perceptive and penetrating. I’d easily rate this as a great “Archduke,” surely the best since I stumbled upon the Trio Trieste’s 1959 recording, reviewed a year ago in 37:6.

Beethoven’s very first published piano trio, the E-Major, op. 1/1, is not, of course, a work possessing anywhere near the same breadth of vision and depth of insight as does the “Archduke” Trio, but in terms of its technical demands on the players and its integration of the three instruments as more or less equal partners, it already represents an advance over the piano trios of Haydn and Mozart, at least in the exposition and working out of its materials, if not in its communicative power. The music, though, definitely makes a statement; it says, “I am Beethoven, and I’m here.” The themes, rhythmic patterns, and piano figuration are bold, masculine, commanding, and authoritative, and that’s how the Swiss Piano Trio plays the piece.

Put another one in the win column for this outstanding ensemble, which slowly but surely is making its way through the standard piano trio literature. Very strongly recommended.

This is Volume 3 of Schumann’s complete Symphonic Works on Audite.
These two works make a nice combination, since they share a formal structure that connects the movements in a subtle and satisfying way. Both are in minor keys and share a depth of feeling that make them two favorites of mine.
These performances are not the grandest I have heard. Shevlin is a fine cellist, principal in this orchestra since 1998. He gives a friendly, sensitive reading of this great concerto. Holliger conducts that and the symphony with style, taking all the repeats in the symphony. I sometimes wish that both works were treated with a little more grandeur, but they are richly recorded.

[…] Vying for top place in terms of sound quality and recorded balance is Anna Malikova’s recording of the five concertos with Thomas Sanderling and the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, whose part in proceedings is beautifully captured (Mark Hohn the recording engineer) – even the three cymbal crashes in the finale, marked p, mf and f, are clearly graded. Malikova’s No 2 is sturdy, accurate and workmanlike, but it doesn’t excite. […]

The notes to many of my Tchaikovsky chamber music discs begin by saying Tchaikovsky was not very interested in chamber music. Well, he may not have written much of it, but what exists is great! In fact, for someone like me, who likes chamber music more than orchestral music, his three quartets and this trio more than do the job when I’m looking for a Tchaikovsky “fix”.
Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio was dedicated to the pianist and composer Nikolai Rubinstein. Tchaikovsky had long intended to write something to show Rubinstein’s gift for playing with other musicians, but Rubinstein’s premature death, which touched Tchaikovsky deeply, meant that he could only compose a work in memory of him.
Both of these readings are excellent. The Cho and Testore Trios both do a fine job with the first movement, bringing tenderness and sensitivity to the work’s sad moments, energy to powerful parts. With the Cho the piano sounds thin when playing alone, but the balance is good when the whole ensemble plays.
Most of the work is composed of a Theme and Variations, and it is here that one can point out differences in the two interpretations. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. In the Theme, which opens with a piano solo, the Testore plays with simple sweetness. Cho’s piano again sounds thin. Variation I, which gives the melody to the strings, sounds better played by the Cho, and their delivery of variation V is magically toy-like. I like Testore’s fugue in variation VIII better than the Cho’s, which feels too bogged down. At their best, the Cho Trio sounds really brilliant, but I think they get hung up on details. Both groups play the Finale beautifully. In the end, it’s really a toss-up between the two. I enjoy both more than the Moscow Trio (Sept/Oct 2013).
As for the remaining works, Testore includes Rachmaninoff’s Trio 1. It is not known to whom, if anyone, the elegy was dedicated, unlike Trio 2, which was dedicated to Tchaikovsky, and was modeled after his trio. The one played here is a very early work, not published until after Rachmaninoff’s death. The notes to this release theorize that this work, too, was meant as an homage to Tchaikovsky, and points out several clear stylistic references. Whether or not this is true, it sounds very Russian, if not very much like mature Rachmaninoff. The Testore give it a very Russian interpretation, romantic and (after the gentle beginning) muscular.
I was extremely impressed with the other works offered by the Cho Trio. I’ve always enjoyed Ax-Ma-Perlman’s Mendelssohn trios, but this is every bit as good. From its ghostly opening and moments of sublime lyricism to its many intense episodes, the ensemble displays remarkable expressive range. In III the constantly spinning figures dance and sparkle. Always there is playfulness and bite.
Like their Tchaikovsky, the Cho’s Arensky surpasses the Moscow Trio’s (included on that 2013 release). I was delighted by the humor and inventiveness of the work, especially the quirkiness of II. Cho’s delivery is stunning! The passagework in the piano is brilliant. I even enjoyed their reading of Shostakovich’s Trio 2, a work I don’t care for, simply for their variety of color. If you like Shostakovich, you’ll like this performance.

Any devotee of great violin playing and kindred instrumental partnerships will treasure this Martzy set with unbounded affection.