Composer: Johannes Brahms, Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Performer: Feininger Trio
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Avi Music
Catalogue: AVI8553513
Release: 2022
Size: 257 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Brahms: Piano Trio No. 2 in C major, Op. 87
01. I. Allegro
02. II. Andante con moto
03. III. Scherzo (Presto — Poco meno presto)
04. IV. Finale (Allegro giocoso)
Korngold: Piano Trio in D major, Op. 1
05. I. Allegro non troppo, con espressione
06. II. Scherzo (Allegro)
07. III. Larghetto
08. IV. Finale (Allegro molto e energico)
This is the fifth album from the Feininger Trio, members of the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra. This is volume two of three albums to come and shows the relationship between Brahms and Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
In its recording cycle, the Feininger Trio is pairing each of the three piano trios written by Brahmswith a work by another Viennese composer: Alexander Zemlinsky, Ernst Krenek, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, respectively. Brahms’s three piano trios are among the genre’s crowning achievements, and the members of the Feininger Trio were interested in exploring how the piano trio genre developed in the master’s wake.
Younger composers drew on Brahms’s legacy while opening a new window to Modernism and the 20th century, and that was the main criterion in choosing the three pairings. Biographical similarities among Korngold, Krenek, and Zemlinsky in their early years also played a major role in the Feininger Trio’s selection. Despite major stylistic differences, a red thread in their the three composers’ lives connects them all with Brahms.
The Feininger Trio have been able to craft a unity out of a work such as this one, which sounds so unusual at first, thanks to the fact that the three musicians already know one another quite well. Nevertheless, in their playing, you can still hear how astonished they are in the face of this staggering accomplishment achieved by a twelve-year-old boy. (Excerpt of the booklet notes after Volker Michael)