Tchaikovsky & Arensky: Piano Trios

“The pianist, Vincent Coq, is both brilliant and sensitive, taking great trouble over balance with the strings while dazzling the ear with his lightly scintillating virtuosity in the more sparkling variation movements.” --Gramophone Magazine, February 2014

“The Trio Wanderer has already given us the most powerful recording of the Shostakovich Second Trio that i’ve ever heard. Now, about a decade later, it provides accounts of the other two great Russian Piano Trios, with equally distinguished results ... a first-rate recording.” --International Record Review, February 2014

Tchaikovsky’s celebrated large-scale Trio Op.50 sets the tone of this recording, at once elegiac and virtuosic. Dedicated to his friend Nikolay Rubinstein with the French epigraph ‘À la mémoire d'un grand artiste’, it shows great originality both in its dimensions and in its style, which calls for highly skilled performers. A similarly ambitious work is the Trio Op.32 of Anton Stepanovich Arensky, also dedicated to the memory of a musician, the cellist Karl Davidov (1838-89). This gem of chamber music, much less often played, constitutes the true discovery of the programme. 

The Trio Wanderer celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2012. Feted by the international press for its extraordinarily sensitive playing, its almost telepathic complicity, and its complete instrumental mastery, the Trio Wanderer is one of the finest chamber music formations in the world today. Dubbed ‘Wandering Star’ by The Strad magazine, it is invited to appear in the most prestigious concert series and at the leading festivals. Since 1999 the trio have recorded for harmonia mundi: 13 recordings have appeared so far, repeatedly winning awards from the critics (Choc de l’Année in Le Monde de la Musique, Critics’ Choice in Gramophone, CD des Monats in Fono Forum, CD of the Month in BBC Music Magazine, Diapason d’Or de l’Année, Midem Classical Award). The group’s recent interpretation of the Mendelssohn trios was chosen as the benchmark version by the New York Times.

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Arensky & Taneyev: Piano Quintets

“[Taneyev's] Piano Quintet is an expansive work, warmly played here and with the subtle intelligence Taneyev demanded of himself when planning a work...If Taneyev's Quintet is the more impressive, Arensky's is perhaps the more attractive...The piano-writing is deft and delicate, excellently handled by Piers Lane and well balanced with the strings in the recording.” --Gramophone Magazine, October 2013

“Lane's light-fingered ascents and rapid scalic plunges are perfectly complemented by the Goldners' feather-light string playing.” --BBC Music Magazine, Christmas Issue 2013 ****/*****

Two chamber masterpieces from nineteenth-century Russia, performed by Piers Lane and the Goldner String Quartet.

Taneyev has been known as the ‘Russian Brahms’ and this epithet is particularly apposite when considering his Piano Quintet in G minor, especially as regards both its instrumental writing and its intellectual passion. Composed in 1911, this massive work bids fair for the accolade of the greatest work in the Russian piano-chamber repertoire before Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet of 1940. Only the extravagance of its technical demands can explain its failure to establish itself in the standard repertoire.

Arensky’s Piano Quintet of 1900 is less monumental and less flamboyant, though not exactly short of fireworks, especially in the piano writing. It is a deeply attractive and enjoyable work—and equally little-known on the concert platform.

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