Brahms Piano Trios

If you’ve not previously heard of the Sitkovetsky Trio, it’s because this is the ensemble’s recording debut. Formed in 2007 by three young musicians who met at Menuhin School in England, the group won first prize at the International Commerzbank Chamber Music Award just one year later, and then the NORDMETALL Chamber Music Award at the Mecklenburg Vorpommern Festival one year after that in 2009.

"The Abegg Trio, hitherto distinguished for recordings of Beethoven and Brahms Trios, returns - as far as the name is concerned - "to itself" with this recording; this judgment is not just a play on words. Far more, it refers to the recording itself: whereas the Beethoven and Brahms recordings were highly remarkable in themselves, the Schumann interpretation by the three musicians is utterly charming: with its natural flow, musical lan where Schumann intended it, and analytically delicate detail work where the structure requires it.

Félicien David (1810-1876) (not to be confused with his near-exact German contemporary, violinist and composer Ferdinand David, 1810-1873) was French, and during his life better known for introducing a North-African and Middle-East-inspired exoticism (the so-called “Orientalism”) to choral and opera music (he had made a long journey to these regions from 1833 to 1835) than for his chamber music, paving the way for Delibe’s Lakmé, Bizet’s Djamileh, Gounod’s La Reine de Saba and Lalo’s Namouna.

The Borodin Trio's recording of Mendelssohn's two piano trios was first released in 1985 and reissued in 2009, in time for the Mendelssohn bicentennial. The performances may not be as warmly opulent as fans of the group might like. Fans used to their big-vibrato, heart-on-the-sleeve approach to the trios of Schubert and Brahms could miss the Trio's usual ultra-lush ensemble and super-heated sonority.

Lars Vogt continues his series of concerto recordings with the Royal Northern Sinfonia with this new recording of Johannes Brahms (18331897) First Piano Concerto together with Four Ballades (Op. 10) for solo piano. As in previous albums, Lars Vogt conducts from the keyboard. The evolution of Brahms 1st Piano Concerto took several steps. Originally conceived to become a Sonata for Two Pianos through orchestration it was developed into a four-movement Symphony until reaching into its final form of a Piano Concerto in three movements. During the process, which lasted from 1854 to 1856, some movements were also discarded and replaced by new material.

This is the fifth album of the Feininger Trio: members of the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra.