Composer: Robert Schumann
Performer: Kungsbacka Piano Trio
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: BIS
Catalogue: BIS2437
Release: 2020
Size: 1.25 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 63
01. I. Mit Energie und Leidenschaft
02. II. Lebhaft, doch nicht zu rasch – Trio
03. III. Langsam, mit inniger Empfindung – Bewegter – Tempo I
04. IV. Mit Feuer – Nach und nach schneller
Fantasiestücke in A minor for Piano Trio, Op. 88
05. I. Romanze
06. II. Humoreske
07. III. Duett
08. IV. Finale
Piano Trio No. 2 in F major, Op. 80
09. I. Sehr lebhaft
10. II. Mit innigem Ausdruck – Lebhaft
11. III. In mäßiger Bewegung
12. IV. Nicht zu rasch
It was in 1842, his year of chamber music that Robert Schumann took on the combination of violin, cello and piano for the first time. He seems to have decided against releasing the resulting Fantasiestücke as a fully-fledged piano trio, however, but later returned to the work, revising it for publication. The model here is not the large-scale, quasi-symphonic trios of Beethoven or Schubert instead Haydns characteristic trio textures spring to mind, especially in the first two movements where the cello largely follows the pianos left-hand bass line. By the time the Fantasiestücke was published in 1850, Schumann had already written two proper piano trios, No. 1 in D minor and No. 2 in F major. According to the composer the second of these makes a friendlier and more immediate impression but it is in fact the D minor trio that has long been the more popular: passionate, mainly extrovert and bursting with fine thematic material it is the easiest to grasp on one hearing. Both works are filled to capacity with imitative writing, sometimes conspicuously so but often subtly as if on a subconscious level an aspect that the members of the Kungsbacka Piano Trio, with more than 20 years of playing together, are able to make the most of.