Beaux Arts Trio

Founded 60 years ago by Menahem Pressler, Daniel Guilet and Bernard Greenhouse, the Beaux Arts Trio performed and recorded exclusively for Philips Classics until 1995. Celebrated for their outstanding chamber-music qualities, the Beaux Arts are one of the greatest ensembles in the history of recorded music. This special 60CD box set includes their extensive discography on Philips Classics and encompasses almost the entire piano trio literature.

This is not, of course, the Beaux Arts' first recording of Ravel's Trio. A previous LP version of theirs, on Philips, is effectively replaced by this new performance, recorded in 1983. The earlier one is coupled with Arthur Grumiaux and Istvan Hajdu's accounts of Ravel's Violin Sonata No. 2 and Tzigane, which may be thought more appropriate than the Chausson Trio. Yet another recording of the latter is an unexpected bonus, and most welcome, particularly as it can be said to surpass the already excellent Harmonia Mundi one by Les Musiciens.

This Haitink/Beaux Arts/LPO Triple Concerto is superb and also unique in my experience. The acoustic captures the BA Trio so closely that one can hear their playing in minute detail. At the same time, the orchestral playing is equally detailed and attractively unbloated. The BA plays the concerto from a chamber music perspective more than a triple superstar perspective. Nothing drags and the bouyancy helps. Pressler and Greenhouse are especially eloquent. Both play with beautiful tone.

The Beaux Arts Trio was a noted piano trio, celebrated for their vivacity, emotional depth and wide-ranging repertoire. They made their debut on 13 July 1955, at the Berkshire Music Festival, Lenox, Massachusetts, United States, known today as the Tanglewood Music Center. Their final American concert was held at Tanglewood on 21 August 2008. It was webcast live and archived on NPR Music. Their final concert was in Lucerne, Switzerland on 6 September 2008.

It is often said that the best Spanish music has been written by Frenchmen. But this disc reveals just how French Spanish composers can be. Refreshingly off-beat repertoire in the shape of piano trios from Joaquin Turina (1882-1949) and the older Granados are given rapturous performances by one of the oldest hands at the game, the Beaux Arts Trio. The pianist, Menahem Pressler, is the longest survivor from this trio, but his companions, violinist Ida Kavafian and cellist Peter Wiley, continue to enhance the name.

The 1970s were heady years indeed for the Haydn collector, with complete recorded cycles of the symphonies, quartets and keyboard works and the first-ever recordings of many of the operas. Attracting less immediate attention than these boxed sets were the activities of the Beaux Arts Trio who, proceeding by stealth with one disc at a time, recorded Haydn's complete piano trios between 1970 and 1978.

The Beaux Arts, late 1980s-style, is recognizably the same creature as it was at the start of the decade, or even two decades ago. The fingers of Menahem Pressler still twinkle away, the violin and cello exchange angst for mischief in volatile and ebullient alternation. The most obvious comparison for their latest release is the identical Dvorak/Mendelssohn coupling of 1980 on Pearl. Then Daniel Guilet was the violinist, and his comparatively small voice and old-style sweetness make their mark: this Dvorak is a small-scale, kid-glove performance, with the gentle acoustic recessing the violin even further and softening the high-spirited Dumka episodes.

Tempered by Rimsky-Korsakov’s orientalism and Tchaikovsky’s eclectic refinement, Anton Arensky’s pristine, elevated style is nowhere more arresting than in his two splendid piano trios. These richly sonorous, predominantly elegiac compositions are magnificently played by the Beaux Arts Trio. Recorded sound is of demonstration quality, and these sensational accounts deserve the strongest conceivable recommendation.

These works, and this recording, work for me. Listening to Korngold's Op.1, you'd never suspect he was 12 years old when he composed it. It's the work of a mature composer, albeit one who would go on to find more of his own voice. But that's the case with all great artists of course. And Zemlinksy's works are always ingenious and rewarding. The professional relationship between these two composers makes the relationship between these two trios all the more interesting. As usual, the Beaux Arts Trio plays impeccably and Philips has created a magnificent recording.

No matter what your opinion of the composer, these Piano Trios represent two of the most ravishing inspired chamber works ever written. There are moments reminiscent of the panache of Chausson, the melancholy of Schubert, the playfulness of Saint-Saens, and the pathos of Shostakovich yet the trios ultimately maintain an identity uniquely their own. Recorded in 1986, the Beaux Arts Trio (in arguably their most esteemed line-up of Menahem Pressler, Isidore Cohen, and Bernard Greenhouse) as well were in top form and deliver performances that can hardly be bettered. An absolute must for all chamber music fans.