Auerbach Dvorak Weinberg Piano Trios Trio Zimbalist Curtis Studio

After sixteen years of exceptional achievement and vast critical acclaim, the career paths of the members of The Florestan Trio are diverging. Sadly, the trio will disband at the end of this year and this disc marks the end of their studio career. For their final recording, the trio performs an all- Shostakovich program comprising the two piano trios and the Seven Romances on Poems of Alexander Blok, for which they are joined by soprano Susan Gritton. Written in 1923, the first trio was an astonishing achievement for a seventeen-year-old student.

Arensky’s Piano Trios represent a fine example of the Russian romantic piano trio, a form ‘invented’ by Tchaikovsky, Arensky’s close friend and influence. Piano Trio No 1 is the more popular of the two, dedicated to the cellist Karl Davidoff. Davidoff is regarded as the founder of the Russian school of cello-playing, and Arensky’s dedication accounts for the fact that the cello plays such a prominent role, having most of the principal themes and often seeming to eclipse the violin in importance. Piano Trio No 2 is one composer’s last works, and marks a considerable advance in Arensky’s compositional techniques.

Older chamber music fans who lament the demise of the trio formed by pianist Eugene Istomin, violinist Isaac Stern, and cellist Leonard Rose will rejoice to hear of this two-disc EMI DVD set featuring videotaped recordings by the esteemed American trio of Beethoven's complete works in the genre: the three Trios from Opus 1, the two from Opus 70, and the one and only Opus 97, plus the transcription of Opus 11. They will, of course, already have the players' stereo studio recordings of the works released on Columbia in the '60s, but unless they were watching French television in 1970, they probably missed these performances filmed live in the studio in Paris. Istomin, Stern, and Rose here have the same distinctive blend of strong individuality and sympathetic ensemble, of blunt aggression and warm tenderness, of powerful drama and melting lyricism that was the hallmark of the group's studio performances, but with the extra excitement and spontaneity of live performances. Though the direction is minimal, the camera work is shaky, and two of the performances – Opus 1, No. 3, and Opus 11 – are in black and white, these discs will thrill fans of the Istomin, Stern, and Rose trio. INA-EMI's stereo sound is very vivid and immediate. (James Leonard)