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This resolutely elegiac disc offers an opportunity to discover, through their chamber music, the dark side of two composers who are not often associated. Smetana’s primary purpose was to give utterance to a cry of pain at his daughter’s death through the appropriate medium of the piano trio. In the Liszt pieces, elegies and funeral gondolas remind us of the deeply human and tormented nature of a composer haunted by death and who, more than any other, was capable of expressing its icy smile. The Trio Wanderer realise all this in deeply moving performances.
Since 1999, the Trio Wanderer has released, on Le Chant du Monde and harmonia mundi, a series of recordings that have received a warm welcome from the press, winning notably a best of the year award from Le Monde de la Musique for its CD of Haydn trios, and numerous international awards for Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet and the trios of Shostakovich and Saint-Saëns. Its recording of the Brahms piano trios was honoured by a Diapason d’Or of the year 2006 and the Midem Classical Award in the chamber music category in January 2007. In 2009, the Trio Wanderer was voted ‘Best chamber music ensemble’ at the Victoires de la Musique for the third time (after 1997 and 2000).
Jean-Marc Phillips plays a violin by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini (1738). Raphaël Pidoux plays a violoncello by Gioffredo Cappa (1680).
Tristia for violin, violoncello and piano (transcription of La Vallée d'Obermann)
Die Zelle in Nonnenwerth for violin and piano, S. 382 (c.1883)
Romance oubliée for violin and piano, S. 132
Trio for piano, violin and violoncello, Op. 15: I. Moderato assai
Trio for piano, violin and violoncello, Op. 15: I. Moderato assai
Trio for piano, violin and violoncello, Op. 15: I. Moderato assai
Elegie No. 1 for violoncello and piano, S. 130
Elegie No. 2 for violin and piano, S. 131
La Lugubre Gondole for violoncello and piano, S. 134 ("Elegie no.3")
The Independent on Sunday
9th January 2011
“they excel together in Liszt's "Tristia" and separately in "Romance oubliée" and "La lugubre gondola".”
February 2011
****
“What a fascinating issue this is. The combination of arrangements and original compositions variously for piano, violin and cello by Liszt and Smetana's marvellous G minor Piano Trio is appropriate...The Wanderer Trio are very successful in the six chamber works by Liszt, negotiating the fearsome virtuosity of Tristia...with confidence.”
21st January 2011
****
“Trio Wanderer captures the various shades of melancholy and nostalgia that Liszt voiced in these and four other works in a similar vein, and in Smetana’s Trio evokes the heartache and anguish that the composer expressed on the death of his young daughter.”
30th January 2011
****
“Finding a coupling for Smetana’s grief-stricken G minor trio — written in response to the death of his four-year-old daughter — is not easy... but the Wanderers have come up with the brilliant idea of Liszt...It’s a programme heavy on existential angst, but the Wanderers bring a Wagnerian intensity and abandonment to Liszt’s almost orchestral writing, which is uplifting.”
March 2011
****
“Smetana opens his Trio with an outpouring of anguish and grief that the Trio Wanderer projects with fearless intensity...Never has the Presto finale's hurtling forward momentum been so powerfully conceived...Recorded at a discrete distance, the Trio Wanderer's probingly expert playing is a constant of pleasure and illumination.”
March 2011
“The individual playing throughout is remarkably fine, but it's the trio playing which impresses most; the players are responsive to each other's playing and pay meticulous attention to dynamic markings...the players explore extremes of tempo, so that the faster music is more incendiary and slower passages more poetic.”
Click on any of the works listed above for alternative recordings.
Tristia for violin, violoncello and piano (transcription of La Vallée d'Obermann)
