Shostakovich: Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67

These are compelling performances from the Spannungen Festival in Heimbach in 2010. Time after time, audiences are astonished at the musical results achieved by the artists at this festival. These are first-rate artists who play together elsewhere throughout the year, enabling wonderful chamber music encounters at Heimbach.

After sixteen years of exceptional achievement and vast critical acclaim the career paths of the members of The Florestan Trio are diverging, sadly the trio will dispand at the end of this year and this disc marks the end of their studio career.

Audiences worldwide have become accustomed to the trios quality, elegance and virtuosity. They have recorded the major works of the piano trio repertoire for Hyperion and these interpretations are frequently viewed as benchmark versions. For this final recording the trio perform an all-Shostakovich programme comprising the two piano trios and the Seven Romances on Poems of Alexander Blok, for which the trio is joined by the glorious soprano voice of Susan Gritton.

Piano Trio No 1 was written in 1923, an astonishing achievement for a seventeen-year-old student. Piano Trio No 2, one of the composer’s greatest masterpieces, was premiered some twenty years later in 1944 and in this turbulent work we are presented with a huge array of dramatic juxtapositions. The Seven Romances on Poems of Alexander Blok were the response to a request by Mstislav Rostropovich for repertoire he and his wife could perform together. This unusual and intimate sequence of Romances conveys the sweetness and intensity of love, threatened by intimations of darkness.

In this recording The Florestan Trio display their impeccable interpretative judgment, class and musicianship.

The long awaited completion of the Abegg Trio’s discography.

The Ibuki Trio have unique experiences as performers and have appeared in major halls around the world, winning competitions and playing as soloists and chamber musicians.

Ben Wragg notably won the Making Music Young Concert Artist Award, the Countess of Munster Award, the Jerwood Foundation Scholarship and the Concordia Foundation. He has been described as "technically and musically out of the ordinary" by the legendary Ruggiero Ricci.

Kan Tomiat won the Kendall Taylor Beethoven Prize, the Hopkinson Gold Medal and the Florestano Rossomandi International Piano Competition in Italy (2004). He has been described by Japanese press thus: "superb technical accomplishment and poetry ...stunning".

Laura Anstee has an interest in world music genres, notably Jewish Klezmer, Gypsy, Balkan and Latin music, which has greatly enriched her approach to music today. She was awarded the Herbert Walenn prize, Douglas Cameron prize, McEwen prize and Gwyneth George prize.

The Ibuki Trio have unique experiences as performers and have appeared in major halls around the world, winning competitions and playing as soloists and chamber musicians.

Ben Wragg notably won the Making Music Young Concert Artist Award, the Countess of Munster Award, the Jerwood Foundation Scholarship and the Concordia Foundation. He has been described as "technically and musically out of the ordinary" by the legendary Ruggiero Ricci.

Kan Tomiat won the Kendall Taylor Beethoven Prize, the Hopkinson Gold Medal and the Florestano Rossomandi International Piano Competition in Italy (2004). He has been described by Japanese press thus: "superb technical accomplishment and poetry ...stunning".

Laura Anstee has an interest in world music genres, notably Jewish Klezmer, Gypsy, Balkan and Latin music, which has greatly enriched her approach to music today. She was awarded the Herbert Walenn prize, Douglas Cameron prize, McEwen prize and Gwyneth George prize.