The Lincoln Trio is renowned for creating “worthwhile programs of serious classical music that are wholly winning and simply delightful” (ClassicsToday.com). For its newest Cedille Records album, “the brilliant Chicago-based Lincoln Trio” (WRTI-FM, Philadelphia) of violinist Desirée Ruhstrat, cellist David Cunliffe, and pianist Marta Aznavoorian has crafted a highly personal programme of inventive 20th-century piano trios by composers from the individual players’ ancestral homelands of Switzerland, England, and Armenia, respectively.
A one-of-a-kind album, Trios From Our Homelands offers stellar performances of substantial works that many listeners will be discovering for the first time. The 1922 Piano Trio by England’s Rebecca Clarke brims with attractive melodies presented with virtuosity and musical ingenuity. Armenia’s Arno Babajanian, whom Mstislav Rostropovich called “a brilliant composer,” is represented by his passionate Piano Trio in F sharp minor from 1952. Swiss composer Frank Martin wrote his tuneful Trio on Popular Irish Melodies, the best-known work on the album, in 1925.
The Lincoln Trio made its full-length Cedille album debut with Notable Women, featuring works by Lera Auerbach, Stacy Garrop, Jennifer Higdon, Laura Elise Schwendinger, Augusta Read Thomas, and Joan Tower. Gramophone said, “The performances by the Lincoln Trio are models of vibrancy and control. The notables on this recording could hardly have better champions.” The Strad praised the ensemble’s “interpretative flair” and “supreme clarity of expression.” Cedille’s Turina: Chamber Music for Strings and Piano is an album on which “sensitive and polished readings by the Lincoln Trio and assisting musicians reveal what is best about this neglected repertory” (Chicago Tribune). The group also performed on the Grammy-nominated Naxos recording of James Whitbourn’s Annelies.
