Thread: Piano Trios: Their significance, important works and great recordings.

Originally Posted by principe

Another omission so far: None mentioned the great, superb, magnificent, albeit a Romantic over the top Piano Trio by...Tchaikovsky. Amazing work, if you have the time, the stamina and the sheer interest in such a Romantic immense journey. Great work in the medium, anyway.

Principe

Gilels-Kogan-Rostropovich live in the 50s. Absolutely extraordinary.

Speaking of Tchaikovsky----Taneyev wrote another great piano trio, one of his best works.

Originally Posted by clavichorder

Speaking of Tchaikovsky----Taneyev wrote another great piano trio, one of his best works.

Oborin-Oistrakh-Knushevitsky. Fantastic.

Originally Posted by Odnoposoff

Oborin-Oistrakh-Knushevitsky. Fantastic.

Thanks! Such a fresh beginning.

Today, I revisited the "Unfinished" D major Piano Trio by Borodin. Very moving, truly romantic and musically commanding. Fascinating and absorbing listening!

Principe

What label, and who are the players?

This Ermitage CD (ERM 413) features the Trio Matisse performing Piano Trios by a trio of composers:



It's not very frequent, for me anyway, to encounter an album program containing works by multiple composers - all of whom whose music I follow (De Pablo, Solbiati & Ives). Whomever selected these works has tastes coinciding with my own.

One word. Schubert.

Quartetfore, it is a very fine SACD by Praga Digitals from the Complete Chamber Music by Borodin (in three volumes). The Trio is in the Volume III. The Kinsky Trio performs: A great group of young Czech musicians. The recording is superb.

Principe

Borodin piano trio: Gilels-Dmitry Tsyganov-Vasily Shirinsky (members of the Beethoven quartet). 1950.

Piano Trios recs.

Haydn - Nos. 28 - 31, BAT (Philips)
Haydn - Nos. 12, 25, 27, 28 KLR Trio (Dorian)
Mozart - Complete, Barenboim/Zlotnikov/Znaider (EMI)
LvB - Ghost & Archduke, Istomin/Stern/Rose (Sony)
Schubert - Complete, BAT (Philips)
Mendelssohn - Complete, KLR Trio (VOX); Complete, Swiss Piano Trio (Audite)
Chopin - Ax/Frank/Ma (Sony)
Schumann - Complete, Gringolts/Kouzov/Laul (Onyx)
Brahms - Complete, Fontenay Trio (Apex)
Dvorak - Dumky, Nash Ens. (Virgin)
Debussy - Florestan Trio (Hyperion)
Saint-Saens - No. 1, Nash Ens. (Virgin)
Arnold - Nash Ens. (Hyperion)
Faure - Florestan Trio (Hyperion)
Rachmaninov - Complete, Borodin Trio (Chandos)
Ravel - Florestan Trio (Hyperion)
Schnittke - Lubotsky/Rostropovich/Schnittke (Sony)
Shostakovich - No. 2, Trio Bolzano (Millennium Classics)

I gess I'm the only archeologist between so many last recording fans.

Smetana's piano trio is also worth investigating.

Tonight, I revisited the glorious f minor, op.65, Piano Trio by Dvorak. I believe it is his greatest Piano Trio and one of the monumental not only in the Romantic era but in the whole Classical realm. The recording I enjoyed thoroughly was with the superb Guarneri Trio, in the best label for Chamber Music, namely Praga Digitals, in very impressive SACD sound.
The slow movement, in A flat, is a poignant and quite emotional movement of the highest order.

Principe

One of the very greatest of all piano trios ever written, and one of the greatest of all chamber works, came from Mozart. His piano trio in E major K542. As much as Haydn was pivotal in the development of this genre, Mozart excelled Haydn despite having written only half a dozen (or less counting original works, not based on arrangements). K542 using only three instruments was almost concerto like for the piano with full independent part for the cello (along with K502, K564); all three parts dealing with fully idiomatic trio texture, the first such bold textures at the time, and not matched by subsequent works by others. Mozart was the first to wholly liberate the cello from the pianist's left hand. It is perhaps not surprising that K542 deserves its special place in the whole of chamber music: it came during the summer of 1788, which was also the period when he finished the last three symphonies. He was well into the height of his instrumental nd orchestral creativity.