Wanderer

Constantly shifting from the most impulsive exuberance to the most restrained meditation, from the most intense passion to the most innocent tenderness, this programme forms a representative panorama of Schumann’s chamber music. Going beyond the piano trios, which already give us a fully rounded account of Schumann, Trio Wanderer have invited their favourite partners to join them for their interpretation of two supreme masterpieces - the Piano Quartet and Piano Quintet.

Robust? Vigorous? Muscular? None of those adjectives even come close to describing these performances by the French Trio Wanderer of Brahms' three piano trios and G minor Piano Quartet. The opening theme of the Allegro con brio in the B flat Trio has rarely sounded so lushly sonorous. The passage work of the Scherzo in the C major Trio has not often been so incredibly relentless. The unisons at the start of the C minor Trio have never been so immensely powerful.

When Shostakovich wrote his Piano Quintet in 1940, most of his chamber music had yet to be composed. Combining formal purity and freedom of tone, the quintet was hailed as a masterpiece and has remained his most popular chamber work. In the last years of a long and productive life, he composed a cycle of songs with piano trio, innovative in both form and structure, a hymn to art, friendship and nature possessing extraordinary evocative power. To tackle these major works of the twentieth century, the Trio Wanderer are joined here by violinist Catherine Montier, violist Christophe Gaugué, and mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk.

likely to divide listeners. Some may object to French players performing Austro-German music, while others will embrace the notion of musical internationalism. Others may object to first-rate Schubert being joined to second-rate Hummel, while others will enjoy the chance to hear an unfamiliar as well as a familiar work. After they hear it, however, most listeners will likely agree on two things. First, they will likely find that the French players do a marvelous job of breathing life into both these works.

The Trio Wanderer follows up its multi-award-winning Schumann set with an exploration of the fascinating world of César Franck. The gulf between his youthful trios and the prodigious works of his maturity reveals a fundamental turning point in the history of French chamber music. Continuing along the trail that Franck blazed with such brio, Louis Vierne’s deeply moving Quintet offers an echo of the older man’s work.

The Wanderers are among the elite piano, violin and cello combinations, and these great works are signature pieces: they take their name from the Schubert song and these pieces are cornerstones of their repertoire (previously available separately)