Acclaimed by audiences, critics and fellow musicians, the Gould Piano Trio has firmly established a reputation as one of the finest, most stylish and versatile chamber ensembles to emerge in recent years.
WHLIVE0026 presents Piano Trios by Schubert, in a work considered to be a masterpiece of the Piano Trio repertoire.
A highlight is James MacMillan’s, 14 Little Pictures, a work the Trio have championed since performing it at the BBC Symphony’s MacMillan Festival at the Barbican and one that is seldom recorded. Composed by one of today’s most successful living composers, this is a fascinating work comprised of fourteen separate miniatures stitched together and interwoven to form a single through-composed work.
The Gould Piano Trio has received countless national and international awards. From their early success at the Charles Hennen and the inaugural Melbourne Competitions through being selected as British ‘Rising Stars’ in 1998, they have since won awards from the Tillett and John Tunnell Trusts in the UK.
Their recording for Naxos combining the Piano Trios of Stanford and Bax was short-listed for a Gramophone award.
The Gould’s residency at the RNCM in Manchester gives them the opportunity to build relationships with young ensembles, introducing them to a wider repertoire, probing deeper into the meaning of the scores and giving regular performances in the city’s busy concert schedule.
1st March 2009
“[Fourteen Little Pictures is] rebarbative, fidgety, wistful and, in the final movement, brooding, his snapshots are realised as meticulously and elegantly as Schubert's Piano Trio in E flat in this live performance by the Gould Piano Trio. Beautifully balanced, this bizarre juxtaposition of composers works suprisingly well.”
22nd February 2009
****
“Restraint is the obvious hallmark of the Gould Trio’s performance of Schubert’s great, expansive, late E flat major piano trio...This suits the piece perfectly, for it is poised on that knife edge between sadness and contentment, and any hint of abandon might destroy that balance.”
May 2009
*****
“James MacMillan's Fourteen Little Pieces for piano trio… add up to one of MacMillan's most convincing large scale structures. The three excellent musicians of the Gould Trio make every detail tell in this live performance, while ensuring that the sense of mysterious progress is not lost. They're also very fine in the Schubert Trio... Benjamin Frith's delicious repeated notes in the finale are specially memorable.”
Click on any of the works listed above for alternative recordings.
