Gould Bash

In their second album for Resonus, the Gould Piano Trio returns with a recording of Franz Schubert’s Piano Trios. Apart from a very early single movement written when he was fifteen years of age, Schubert came to the piano trio late in his short career and left only two full-length works in the form, written in 1827–8. By the time Schubert came to write his piano trios, the form had taken on a new stature thanks to work from composers such as Beethoven. Here, Schubert’s Trios in B-flat major and the ‘Notturno’ in E-flat major are joined by the delightful Valses nobles D969, composed for solo piano and heard here in a world premiere recording in this arrangement for trio by Julius Zellner.

There has been no more original genius of the keyboard than Glenn Gould, but this has ¬drawbacks as well as thrilling advantages. He can sacrifice depth of feeling for a relentless and quixotic sense of adventure. Yet love it or deride it, every bar of these lovingly remastered discs tingles with joie de vivre and an unequalled force and vitality. Try the opening of the First Suite