COMPOSERS: Mendelssohn
LABELS: Hyperion
ALBUM TITLE: Mendelssohn Piano Trios
WORKS: Piano Trio No. 1; Piano Trio No. 2
PERFORMER: Florestan Trio
CATALOGUE NO: CDA 67485
What immediately impresses
about these performances by the
Florestan Trio is the lightness and
clarity of the playing, with Susan
Tomes characteristically sparing
in her use of pedal. In both works
the scherzo is a typically fleeting
and transparent piece, and it would
be hard to imagine either more
satisfactorily done.
Nor is there any lack of
fire elsewhere – indeed, the
performance of the finale in the
C minor Second Trio generates
such energy that the climactic
emergence of its chorale melody
acts, as it should, as a release of
the music’s pent-up tension. Only
in the opening bars of the same
work’s first movement, with their
sweeping main subject, is the rise
and fall of the music’s dynamics a
shade underplayed.
There have been other impressive
versions of these works, not least
by the Beaux Arts Trio. I am by no
means an unreserved Beaux Arts
admirer, but Mendelssohn suits
these players particularly well, and
it’s possible to feel they find greater
depth in the slow movements, in
particular. Both begin with an
extended solo piano melody, and
Tomes is a touch straight-laced
playing this in comparison with
her colleague in the Beaux Arts,
Menahem Pressler. In the end,
though, the question of expressive
freedom is a matter of taste, and
there’s no doubt this well-recorded
new disc offers exceptionally fine
accounts of these two great works.
Misha Donat