Ravel: Piano Trio in A minor

“these performances from the 2011 [Spannungen] festival feature a mixing and matching of personnel, with inspiration generally running high in these three trios captured on three successive days....It is only with Ravel's Piano Trio that things become a little workaday...Nonetheless, the Smetana and Watkins are certainly worth the price of the disc.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2013 ****

“Huw Watkins is a remarkably gifted pianist as well as a composer, as he amply demonstrates in Smetana's G minor Trio...The flexibility of Antje Weithaas's violin-playing is a predictable pleasure and the young cellist Marie-Elisabeth Hecker proves every bit her equal...The playing [of Watkins's Speak Seven Seas] is superb, the applause hugely enthusiastic.” Gramophone Magazine, February 2013

“Such flair proves The Florestan Trio, if proof is needed, to be among the finest chamber ensembles of the present day. Outstandingly imaginative performances, finely recorded” Classic CD

“A delightful grouping of French trios from the Gramophone Award-winning Florestans, who breathe fresh life into these works … top of my list” Gramophone Magazine

“Cool but not cold, nostalgic but not sentimental - performing Ravel's Piano Trio can be a bit like treading on egg shells, yet the Trio Wanderer make it all sound effortless. Wonderful Chausson too.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2007 *****

“Pascal Rogéacute; heads up this thoughtful disc of French trios. He has described his gods as Bach, Beethoven and Schumann, with Poulenc, Debussy and Satie as his friends. And so, too, are Ravel and Chausson, to judge by his finely sensitive performances.
Ravel's swaying, insinuating opening theme could hardly be played more lucidly or affectionately and its final return is full of hushed magic, a far cry from smarter, more metropolitan and impersonal readings. The Pantoum is vivacious rather than aggressive and the entire performance, even in moments of heightened drama and intensity, is unforced, its sparkle gentle rather than metallic or self-consciously virtuosic.
Chausson's early Trio is remote from such ultra- Gallic refinement and sophistication, its opening Pas trop lent romantically troubled in a style clearly deriving from César Franck's recently completed Piano Quintet. The second movement Vite, on the other hand, falls like manna from heaven after so much chromatic turbulence. Both here and in the finale Chausson breaks out into a reassuring lightness which has its origins in Saint- Saëns. Such alternating solace and despair are beautifully realised by Rogéacute; and his colleagues.
The warm and fluid Onyx sound reflects performances of a quiet but unmistakable authority.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010