Maria Kliegel

Dedicated to his friend and pupil Archduke Rudolf, Beethoven’s expansive Archduke Trio is his greatest work in the genre, though increasing deafness meant it also signalled his final appearances as a performer. The cheerful Piano Trio in E flat major is an earlier work, though only discovered amongst the composer’s papers after his death, and the Kakadu Variations is another good humoured work based on a popular song of the day. With the American Record Guide “impressed with every recording”, Volumes 1 (8557723), 2 (8557724), 3 (8570255) and 4 (8570943) are also available.

The Xyrion Trio’s cycle of Beethoven’s Piano Trios and other chamber works has already established a firm following and wide critical acclaim, with volume 3 (8570255) described as “every bit as exceptional as the first volume (8557723)” by American Record Guide, and volume 4 (8570943) as “an unqualified success” (Fanfare). This volume forms a climax for the whole series, including as it does Beethoven’s masterpiece of the genre, the Archduke Trio.

Georges Onslow was descended from an aristocratic English family, his paternal grandfather being the first Earl of Onslow. Georges was born in France, where he studied, though he also took lessons from Dussek and Cramer in London. His esteem was such that he later succeeded to Cherubini’s chair of music in Paris. He was famed for his chamber music, and the three Cello Sonatas, Op. 16, completed in 1820, were compared with those of Beethoven. They represent some of the fi nest such sonatas to be written in France in the fi rst half of the nineteenth-century.