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Mozart: Piano Trios, Vol. 1
Evil Penguin
CD
$16.99
Oct 16, 2026
How can music by Mozart still feel undiscovered? For this ensemble, the answer lies in the piano trios: works that, despite their composer's fame, remain surprisingly absent from the concert hall. Bringing together K. 254, K. 496 and K. 548, this first volume follows Mozart's style across twelve formative years, representing three distinct periods in his writing for piano trio, from the lingering influence of the accompanied sonata to a richly conversational chamber style.
Mozart: Piano Trios, Divertimento In B Flat K 254 / Kungsbacka Trio
Naxos
CD
$19.99
Nov 18, 2008
MOZART Divertimento in B?, K 254. Piano Trios: No. 1; No. 3 • Kungsbacka Tr • NAXOS 8.570518 (63:28)
While the string quartet and piano trio almost certainly originated in earlier Baroque models, Franz Joseph Haydn is generally credited with having established both of them as permanent, formalized fixtures, if by no other measure than sheer dint of his voluminous output. At latest tally, Haydn’s piano trios number 45, though in the late 1970s, when the Beaux Arts Trio set out to record its monumental œuvre intégral for Philips, there were 43; and in a more recent period-instruments set from the Van Swieten Trio on Brilliant Classics that calls itself “complete” the total seems to have dwindled to 37. I suppose one could explain away the discrepancy based on an interpretation of what constitutes a piano trio; for clearly Haydn’s earliest efforts in the medium (he began writing trios as early as 1766 and continued as late as 1797) resemble more closely the trio sonata from which the piano trio most likely evolved.
No such ambiguities or count controversies exist when it comes to Mozart’s piano trios; for there are only six of them, and of those, all but one were written late in the composer’s life, between 1786 and 1788, a period that saw the creation of some of his greatest works. And yet, the trios have long been consigned to a seat at the back of the bus. It’s understandable, I suppose, to regard the modest forces of a piano trio as Lilliputian compared to the cast of singers and players to be marshaled for a performance of The Marriage of Figaro , completed in the same year as the G-Major Trio. But if you listen closely to these miniature masterpieces, you will hear the mature Mozart at work, with all of the perfection of craftsmanship and subtleties of melodic and harmonic expression to be found in the scores dating from the composer’s last five years.
That Mozart had the advantage of Haydn’s trios as models meant that he did not have to reinvent the wheel; it was ready-made for him to adopt and advance. Haydn had to learn how to free the cello from its trio sonata role of merely doubling the left hand of the keyboard part. Even in Mozart’s first foray into the medium, his 1776 B?-Major Divertimento, K 254, much of the time the cello still plays Doppelganger to the bass line. But by the time he came to write his five mature piano trios, Mozart had absorbed and in some ways surpassed what he learned from Haydn. I would not be prepared to claim, however, that the works in this medium, either by Haydn or by Mozart, prognosticate the piano trio’s future in the hands of Beethoven; for its transformation by Beethoven into a supersized and supercharged vessel for dramatic and expressive communication would cement its permanence, along with that of the string quartet, as the most populous and significant chamber music genre even unto the present day.
The 11-year-old Kungsbacka Trio (Malin Broman, violin; Jesper Svedberg, cello; and Simon Crawford-Phillips, piano) was formed in 1997 and takes its name from the Swedish town that hosted its first public performance in 2001. The current release, designated by Naxos as Volume 1, promises a follow-on disc containing Mozart’s remaining three trios. As of this writing, however, the Kungsbacka Trio has made only two other recordings—Schubert’s great E?-Major Piano Trio, also for Naxos, and for BIS a program of works by contemporary Swedish composer Karin Rehnqvist.
Despite the modest scale and the less than crown-jewel worth accorded these trios, there has been no dearth of high-profile ensembles that have committed them to disc, among them the always trustworthy Beaux Arts Trio, long available in a budget twofer from Philips, as well as more recent entries from the Florestan and Parnassus Trios on Hyperion and MDG respectively, and my own personal favorite from the Gryphon Trio on Analekta. Not to slight the period-instruments buffs, there’s also the Trio Stradivari on cpo and the London Fortepiano Trio on Hyperion.
The Kungsbacka Trio is a modern-instruments ensemble, but it plays stylishly and tastefully. Translation: articulation is crisp, vibrato is minimal, tempos are spirited in allegro movements and forward moving in andante movements, open strings are not avoided, and first-movement exposition repeats are taken.
For those who don’t already have one or more versions of these trios in their collections and/or who are not uncompromising advocates for period instruments, the Kungsbacka Trio can be recommended for very fine playing, and Naxos’s recording, at a price that can’t be beat, is excellent. A most satisfying first installment of Mozart’s six piano trios; I look forward to its completion.
FANFARE: Jerry Dubins
Legendary Treasures - Piano Trios / Gilels, Kogan, Et Al
Doremi
CD
$101.99
Aug 07, 2007
BEETHOVEN Piano Trios: in B?, “Archduke”; 1 in E?, WoO 38. 1 MOZART Piano Trios: in B?, K 254; 1 in G, K 564. 1 HAYDN Piano Trios: 1 in D, Hob XV:16; in g, Hob XV:19. TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Trio in a, op. 50. 1 SHOSTAKOVICH Piano Trio in e, op. 67. 1 SAINT-SAËNS Piano Trio in F, op. 18. 1 SCHUMANN Piano Trio in d, op. 63. 1 BORODIN Piano Trio, in D. 2 FAURÉ Piano Quartet, op. 15. 3 BRAHMS Trio for Piano, Violin, and Horn, op. 40 4 • Emil Gilels (pn); 1,2,3,4 Leonid Kogan (vn); 1,3,4 Mstislav Rostropovich (vc); 1,3 Dmitry Tziganov (vn); 2 Sergei Shirinsky (vc); 2 Rudolf Barshai (va); 3 Yakov Shapiro (hn) 4 • DOREMI 7921 (5 CDs: 344:47)
This impressive five-CD set from DOREMI presents a fascinating portrait of a splendid Soviet-era ensemble, whose members—pianist Emil Gilels, violinist Leonid Kogan, and cellist Mstislav Rostropovich—collaborated for more than a decade beginning in 1949. They are joined by violist Rudolf Barshai (with whom Kogan and Rostropovich formed a String Trio during the 1950s) in the first Fauré Quartet, and the horn-player Yakov Shapiro joins Gilels and Kogan in the Brahms Trio. The Borodin Trio that rounds out the set features Gilels with two of his earlier chamber music partners, violinist Dmitry Tziganov and cellist Sergei Shirinsky, both members of the Beethoven Quartet.
The least of these performances are very good and the best of them nothing short of brilliant. The “Archduke” Trio must be one of the finest on record. In the first movement development, the juxtaposition of string pizzicatos with the piano’s trills creates an uncanny, otherworldly atmosphere. When the recapitulation finally arrives, it seems not just a satisfying homecoming, but a deliverance from the outer realms of abstraction. The ensemble finesse in the Scherzo is breathtaking, while the spiritual depths of the unique Andante cantabile are plumbed with grace and reverence. The same sort of Apollonian approach that makes this reading of the “Archduke” so successful is applied to the Tchaikovsky trio, with stunning results. Even some of the most celebrated performances of this difficult work (the Rubinstein/Heifetz/Piatigorsky, RCA 63025 among them) narrowly skirt the maudlin. Here, however, the three Russians bring a sincerity and simplicity to Tchaikovsky’s every gesture, allowing his elegy for Nicolas Rubinstein to speak with eloquence, at once dignified, restrained, and heartfelt.
In the Schumann Trio, Gilels, Kogan, and Rostropovich achieve a prodigy of imaginative interpretation, all within the context of the most sophisticated and refined ensemble-playing. It is hard to imagine a more compelling conception of this impassioned score. They also approach Shostakovich’s eerily atmospheric Second Trio with the utmost conviction. The hectic second movement is a kinesthetic tour de force , while the finale’s unconventional oriental textures are deftly maneuvered to great effect.
Predictably, the Haydn and Mozart readings are less satisfactory. Generalizations are always dangerous, but perhaps it is not inaccurate to say that, prior to the inevitable cross-pollination with the West occurring during later decades through travel and recordings, Soviet musicians approached Haydn and Mozart with a prettified delicacy. The results can often sound mannered, if not downright bloodless, and light years away from what we consider appropriate late-18th century style today. One case in point is the weepy vibrato Kogan employs in the sustained passages of the plaintive Andante opening of the Haydn G-Minor Trio; another is the flaccid Allegretto of the Mozart G-Major Trio, where phrase shapes are obliterated by an anachronistic effort to achieve the late-19th century ideal of the “long line.” Despite these reservations, even the 18th-century repertoire is of historical interest: this is the way this music was played behind the Iron Curtain in the years following WW II.
The sound of these recordings is consistent with the technological resources of Melodiya (the original issuing label) during the 1950s. Most were studio recordings, but some were live performances. One can discern the improvement of equipment and recording techniques between the earliest of the performances (the Tchaikovsky Trio, 1950) and the latest (the Shostakovich, 1959). Though the sound is flattened-out relative to modern standards, balances are superb, and no detail seems lost. The accompanying leaflet contains thumbnail bios of the principal artists as well as the works and timings, but no information on the matrices (beyond photographic reproductions of the record labels) or the transfer process. All in all, fascinating performances of representative repertoire by master musicians. Highly recommended.
FANFARE: Patrick Rucker
Hans Gal & Hans Krasa: Complete String Trios
Avie Records
CD
$19.99
Sep 01, 2012
GÁL Serenade in D, Op. 41. Trio in f?, Op. 104. KRÁSA Tanec (Dance). Passacaglia and Fugue • Ens Epomeo • AVIE 2259 (67:08)
Hans Gál has been receiving some well-deserved, if belated, attention on disc lately. Just a couple of issues back, I reviewed a must-have recording by cellist Antonio Meneses performing Gál’s very beautiful Cello Concerto. And now, here on the present release, we have what is advertised as the complete string trios of both Gál and his close contemporary Hans Krása. Though born only nine years apart— Gál in 1890 and Krása in 1899— Gál was fortunate to escape the advancing Nazi forces into Austria, fleeing to the U.K. in 1938 and eventually settling in Edinburgh, where he died in 1987. Krása was not so lucky. He was deported first to the Theresienstadt concentration camp and then transferred to Auschwitz where he was killed in 1944. Given Krása’s much shorter life, it’s understandable that his output is considerably less than Gál’s. Neither composer, however, apparently devoted much effort to the string trio, since the contents of this CD are said to be the extent of it.
The two Gál works are recorded here for the first time, and, in terms of scale, they’re both major additions to the literature, each lasting over 25 minutes. Written in 1932, before the serious trouble began, the Serenade lives up to its title, in name, if not strictly in form. The piece is in four movements in what I would describe as a nod to the Baroque and Classical periods as reflected through the lens of an easygoing, listener-friendly modernist style that teases and tickles the ear with fractured and fragmented references to familiar pieces. Throughout the first movement (Capriccioso), for example, you’ll hear the distinctive three-note pattern that permeates the first movement of Bach’s G-Major Brandenburg Concerto. While I wouldn’t want to push the analogy too far, I’d say that to a degree Gál’s Serenade reminds me of some of Hindemith’s Kleine Kammermusik pieces. Gál’s score is mostly busy, breezy, and boffo, perhaps more in the manner of a divertimento than a serenade.
Just as long, but in only three movements this time, the Trio in F?-Minor is a much later work, dating from 1971, when the trouble was long over. The piece was commissioned by the London Viola d’amore Society and originally scored for violin, viola d’amore, and cello, but Gál made this version for traditional string trio at the same time. The mood is now introspective, brooding, and perhaps a bit bereft. If there’s an analog here, I’d have to say that the Trio seems to look back to the highly chromatic, freely tonal style familiar from works of the late 19th- and early 20th-century Viennese composers before they succumbed to the siren of dodecaphonism. In other words, Gál’s Trio is a nostalgic soak in a muddy pond. But mud baths are supposed to be therapeutic, and this one left me with a nice, warm glow.
The Krása pieces are considerably shorter—six minutes for Tanec and just under 10 minutes for the Passacaglia and Fugue. Tanec, or Dance, was composed in the last year of Krása’s life. With its strong rhythmic thrust, ostinato figure in the cello, and Hungarian folk flavor, the music is at first suggestive of Bartók, but as Kenneth Woods’s note indicates, the piece is meant to be evocative of trains, with the obvious reference to the boxcars that transported Krása and the millions of others to the death camps. To quote Woods, “the atmosphere ranges from eerie nostalgia, to barely contained menace, to explicit violence,” and ends in a series of manic shrieks. Written later that same year (1944), the Passacaglia and Fugue is Krása’s last completed work. It’s difficult to describe this music of broken spirit and soul. Initially, Shostakovich comes to mind in a frozen soundscape benumbed by cruel and forbidding cold. But slowly, the music rises to a pitch of bickering and physical altercation.
The recording at hand represents the Ensemble Epomeo’s disc debut. Named for the Mediterranean volcano, Mt. Epomeo, the group was founded when the three players—Caroline Chin, violin; David Yang, viola; and Kenneth Woods, cello—came together at the Festivale di Musica da Camera d’Ischia in Italy in 2008. It’s always difficult to judge an ensemble in unfamiliar repertoire, but I think I can say that the Epomeo’s musicians are more than up to the technical task of their business and that they sound intensely engaged in the emotional worlds of these two composers and their music. I would now look forward to hearing the ensemble in something more familiar, like Mozart’s great Divertimento in E?-Major, K 563, or the Beethoven string trios. Meanwhile, this new, excellent recording is strongly recommended.
FANFARE: Jerry Dubins
