CSMF 2016 - Leonore Piano Trio

Beethoven Piano trio in E flat major Op.1 No.1

Lalo Piano trio No.3 in A minor

 

Beethoven was determined to create a stir in the world with his Opus 1, labouring long on the trios in particular, revising them extensively before publication. The results of this care are obvious in the exuberant Piano Trio Op.1 No.1, unmistakable both in the debt it owes to Mozart and Haydn, and in the sheer revolutionary genius of its explosion of classical form.

 

A similarly rogue spirit can be heard in Lalo’s Piano Trio No.3 in A minor. Édouard Lalo sat at one remove from the French musical establishment, eschewing both the back-scratching of the Conservatoire and its members’ impressionist “musiques parfumées”. Instead we have big-boned melody, material into which the expert members of the Leonore Piano Trio sink their bows and fingers with appreciative gusto.