"This disc, the sixth in a valuable trio series from TACET, features stylish, stimulating playing from an emerging world-class ensemble, the Gaede Trio. It is boldly programmed, juxtaposing Beethoven′s truly glorious D major Trio - which dates from 1797/98, the time of the early quartets and not long before his ballet, The Creatures of Prometheus, made him a talking point of Vienna - and Mozart′s deft treatment, at much the same age, of a Bach Prelude and Fugue. These are side by side with two works by well-contrasted 20th-century figures, the French chamber music composer Jean Francaix (1912-97) and the Viennese avant-gardist Ernst Krenek, who in his day (1900-91) made as much of a splash as Beethoven in his.
The subtle contrasts in this richly rewarding Beethoven trio must be attributed to the masterly composer himself, but the Gaede Trio′s loyalty to Beethoven′s design and attention to every detail and nuance (just hear the opening of the Andante and the same movement′s almost whispered later evolution) make the reading, peppered with exquisite ensemble playing, highly memorable. I find the group′s flair matches Mozart′s arrangement of the Bach Fugue a lot better than the preceding Prelude, whose treatment feels nervily over-pointed.
No such problem in the Francaix, a superb, spirited 1930s work with no less than three vivaces embracing an exquisite, shy Andante. Well worth dispicsing. The Krenek - a tribute to Bach′s bicentenary - is more polytonally pointilliste and fares better the more urgent, vital sections than in the slightly elusive, questing passages. The recorded sound is agreeably lucid."
Roderic Dunnett
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The subtle contrasts in this richly rewarding Beethoven trio must be attributed to the masterly composer himself, but the Gaede Trio′s loyalty to Beethoven′s design and attention to every detail and nuance (just hear the opening of the Andante and the same movement′s almost whispered later evolution) make the reading, peppered with exquisite ensemble playing, highly memorable. I find the group′s flair matches Mozart′s arrangement of the Bach Fugue a lot better than the preceding Prelude, whose treatment feels nervily over-pointed.
No such problem in the Francaix, a superb, spirited 1930s work with no less than three vivaces embracing an exquisite, shy Andante. Well worth dispicsing. The Krenek - a tribute to Bach′s bicentenary - is more polytonally pointilliste and fares better the more urgent, vital sections than in the slightly elusive, questing passages. The recorded sound is agreeably lucid."
Roderic Dunnett
<< back