The quality of the recorded sound is so perfectly clear on this recording, like finely etched crystal, while at the same time it is so robust and resonant, that it is difficult to believe that the piano played on these two marvelous CDs is a replica of a 1785 Walter fortepiano, a smaller and much more fragile instrument than today's modern concert grand pianos.

L’Entretien des Muses composé de Virginie Descharmes (violon), Tormod Dalen (violoncelle) et Stéphane Fuget (clavecin) nous invite à revivre avec un exceptionnel talent et un souci de véracité historique parfaitement ressuscité l’exécution des trios pour clavecin, violon et basse que Joseph Haydn composa entre 1755 et 1765. L’esprit de Haydn, qui n’est pas encore celui de la grande maturité, souffle sur ces pièces Hoboken XV (n° 1, 35, 37, 40, 41) que les interprètes abordent à égalité, chaque partenaire réussissant à faire entendre sa partie face à ses comparses. Est-il besoin de préciser que leur maîtrise instrumentale n’est nullement un problème et qu’alors seuls importent les choix interprétatifs?

Cet enregistrement est une lecture neuve, et décapante de ces œuvres bien connues. Ophélie Gaillard et son partenaire sont renversants d'énergie, de contrastes tout en gardant une constante justesse de ton. Ces pages parfois un brin poussiéreuse prodiguent ici un souffle de vitalité confondant. C'est pour moi l'enregistrement "parfait" à mettre d'urgence dans ses références absoules en matière de musique de chambre romantique.

At the height of his career Sir Charles Stanford held a leading position in British music, not only as a teacher of many of the most important composers of the new generation, but as one of the most significant British composers – the other was Sir Hubert Parry – to have emerged immediately before Elgar. Chiefly remembered today for his Irish Rhapsodies, Seven Symphonies and Clarinet Concerto, Stanford composed many chamber works, including several for clarinet written in what might be described as a ‘Brahmsian’ idiom. The Piano Trio No. 3, the last of three which span Stanford’s mature career, was written as a tribute to friends lost in the First World War.

This version of the Tchaikovsky measures up extremely well against its competition; moreover it is (like all chamber recordings from this source) very well balanced. Pianist Stefan Mendl is able to dominate yet become a full member of the partnership throughout. The second movement's variations open gently but soon develop the widest range of style, moving through Tchaikovsky's kaleidoscopic mood-changes like quicksilver and often with elegiac lyrical feeling.

Florilegium’s latest release contains the complete instrumental trio sonatas of Bach. But if you discount the six-part Ricercar from the Musical Offering itself, which of course is not a trio, but which nonetheless is included here, only two of the remaining items are indisputably products of Bach’s pen. The Trio in G (BWV 1038) may be by Bach, who certainly provided its bass line; but the likelihood is that it was the work of one or other of his two elder sons or perhaps one of Bach’s Leipzig pupils. The Trio in C (BWV 1037), on the other hand, is certainly not by Bach, but by his gifted pupil, Goldberg.

A good long time ago I reviewed a set of Svetlanov performances of music by Medtner which included, almost as an afterthought, a few examples of compositions by Eduard Nápravnik. The Czech-born composer, like so many of his executant confrères, ended up in St Petersburg where the Russian Schools, an amalgam of native Russian, Czech and Hungarian teaching, thrived during the nineteenth-century and beyond.

Heinrich von Herzogenberg’s search for selfhood finally came to fruition in his two piano trios. After highly promising successes in his native Graz with large-format works modeled on Wagner, the talented young composer experienced a creative and existential crisis from which he first recovered when he turned to Johannes Brahms. The Vienna Piano Trio documents this artistic awakening with a top quality interpretation on SACD adding a new facet to the reception of Herzogenberg’s music after its sleeping beauty’s century of slumbering.

Johannes Brahms had decided that his composing days were over, but then the retiree met Richard Mühlfeld, the clarinetist of the Meiningen Court Orchestra. Mühlfeld's playing so very much charmed the great composer that he once again put pencil to score paper - and did so again and again - and with magnificent results. Here the two Clarinet Sonatas and the equally marvelous Clarinet Trio are heard for the first time in high-resolution 3-D sound on Super Audio CD in performances by Robert Oberaigner and Michael Schöch - joined by Norbert Anger on the cello.

PREMIERE RECORDING An-lun Huang's piano trios dazzlingly demonstrate that contemporary music in no way has to be accessible only to a sworn community of experts. With his skill this Chinese-Canadian composer combines the best traditions from several world regions to produce a euphonious and harmonious whole - and does so with great class. The premiere ensemble for the Trio No. 2 from 2015 lends this first recording a special measure of authenticity. As a composer and as a teacher An-lin Huang is sought after throughout the world.

Unlike those of his elite fellow executant-composers such as Rode, Spohr, or Viotti, Molique’s violin concertos never really made it, whether as concert vehicles or as student practice works. His chamber music too was long ignored and it’s really only in recent years that labels have begun to explore it. CPO has been recording the quartets and now MDG turns to the piano trios in its first volume of a series.

Airy, transparent, light as a feather - if any composer’s music answers to these attributes, then it is that of Maurice Ravel, including his Piano Trio, even if this work too has its more serious moments. On its newest Super Audio CD the Vienna Piano Trio brings together this marvellously unique achievement and a very differently gripping trio by Ernest Chausson - a fascinating contrast and one most beautifully celebrated by our Vienna threesome.

Ferdinand Ries must have made a strong impression as a pianist. Beethoven, a gifted pianist in his own right, even entrusted the premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 3 to Ries. The two had known each other since their days together in Bonn, when Riess parents took the half-orphan Ludwig into their family. Ries was Beethovens right-hand man in Vienna, and what he learned from his great model, who was fourteen years his senior, is impressively demonstrated by the Franz Ensemble on its debut album: brilliant virtuosity meets Classical form, and tradition appears in new guise for a very special anticipation of the 250th anniversary of Beethovens birth!

A brilliant start and now the sequel on Vol. 2 with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's complete basset horn trios in arrangements by Ulf-Guido Schafer for trio d'anches. From the twenty-five individual movements - in part of quite enigmatic transmission - Schafer has put together two more highly entertaining divertimentos. Deeply moving excerpts from Cosi fan tutte form a dramatic contrast to the serenade tone of the trios. The trio d'anches consisting of an oboe, a clarinet, and a bassoon is actually a creation of the twentieth century. French composers in particular felt inspired by the homogeneous sound of this ensemble not unlike the sound of the human singing voice.