Mozart Trio

This is the kind of package which represents the best of the Philips Classics Duo series. Slightly older recordings, but in beautiful, clear, warm analogue sound; artists of the old school and the first rank; a compilation of potentially neglected music made available absurdly cheaply in attractive packaging with high production values and intelligent notes; what's not to like?

The trio on this dics is chamber music performance at its highest level of enjoyment. Listening to the CD, you get an impression of three great friends having a most delightful conversation, elegant and graceful. The recorded sound is first rate. You hear all the details of instruments being played and also the acoustic features of the room in which they performed. It is interesting to compare this one with a Mozart trio played by Dumay, Wang and Pires, which features more modern recorded sound and the same delight in the musicans playing the music together. The duos on this CD are equally enjoyable. I particularly like the nostalgically nasal yet lush tone of the viola Kashkashian played.

Not among his best known music, Wolfgang Mozart’s Trios for violin, cello and piano have a lighter feel than his more serious chamber pieces, say the K. 515 String Quintet or the “Dissonant” Quartet. They are more charming than profound, so I’ve always paid them much less attention than his quintets, quartets and violin sonatas, something which I also think true of many listeners. This superb release from Augustin Dumay (violin), Maria Pires (piano) and Jian Wang (cello) helps show their relative obscurity is partly caused by disappointing performances, because I very much enjoyed the three the ensemble include in this disc.

Die vierte Staffel der erfolgreichen dhm Editionen. 10 herausragende Aufnahmen in einer hochwertigen Box mit Originalcover zu einem sensationell günstigen Preis..

Considering that Mozart's Divertimento in E-flat is far and away the greatest string trio ever written, and one of the unquestionable monuments of chamber music generally, it doesn't get the attention that it surely deserves from either record labels or collectors. Perhaps the dearth of regularly constituted string trios (as opposed to quartets) has something to do with it, but the fact remains that there is no greater testament to Mozart's genius than this epic, nearly 50-minute-long masterpiece in six movements that contains not a second that fails to rise to the highest level of textural gorgeousness and supreme melodic inspiration. Happily, most performances understand how special the music is, and give it their best effort. This one is no exception. The Zimmerman Trio plays with remarkably accurate intonation and a ravishing tone that's also mindful of the Classical style. Schubert's single-movement trio makes the perfect coupling. It seems to grow right out of the Mozart until the end of the exposition, when Schubert suddenly sails in with some typically arresting harmony.

The greatest of Mozart's wind serenades and the toughest of Alban Berg's major works might seem an unlikely pairing, but in an interview included with the sleeve notes for this release, Pierre Boulez points up their similarities. Both works are scored for an ensemble of 13 wind instruments (with solo violin and piano as well in the Berg) and both include large-scale variations as one of their movements - and Boulez makes the comparisons plausible enough in these lucid performances. It's rare to hear him conducting Mozart, too, and if the performance is a little brisker and more strait-laced than ideal, the EIC's phrasing is a model of clarity and good taste. It's the performance of the Berg, though, that makes this such an important issue; both soloists, Mitsuko Uchida and Christian Tetzlaff, are perfectly attuned to Boulez's approach - they have given a number of performances of the Chamber Concerto before - and the combination of accuracy and textural clarity with the highly wrought expressiveness that is the essence of Berg's music is perfectly caught.

HORN TRIOS from MOZART to PIAZZOLLA and beyond (Volume 1) is the first installment of a 2-volume compendium of horn trios from the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st centuries - an amazing "anthology" of original and arranged repertoire for the trio ensemble of horn, violin and piano. This is not the kind of recording project consisting of the obligatory Brahms Trio Op. 40 in the company of two or three other much-recorded works. Presenting a 4-centuries double-disc album with just this First Volume, the artists explore a strikingly-interesting collection of diverse styles and genres, where even the sheer number of different nationalities of the composers (from 12 different countries) brings instant awe. Yes, the Brahms Horn Trio is included, as well as works by Mozart and Piazzolla (as the album's title proclaims), but we also hear trios by composers from the United States, Canada, England, France, Liechtenstein, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria and Morocco. Presenting no less than 8 world-premiere recordings in just this Volume 1, the album brims with rarities and contrasts, showcasing many works written specifically for these artists.