Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, op. 67; Beethoven: Piano Trio in D major, op. 70, No. 1, Ghost; Ravel: Piano Trio in A minor.
TrioMats: Mats Zetterqvist (violin), Mats Rondin (cello), Mats Widlund (piano).
Daphne 1016. DDD. TT 76:59.
Recorded Ytterjärna Concert Hall, Sweden, December 2000.

Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, op. 67; Tchaikovsky: Piano Trio in A minor, op. 50.
Le Trio Rachmaninoff de Montréal: Natalia Kononova (violin), Velitchka Yotcheva (cello), Patrice Laré (piano).
Atma Classique ACD22271. DDD. TT 68:09.
Recorded Salle Claude-Champagne, Montréal, 10-12 January 2003.

Piano Trio No. 1 in C minor, op. 8; Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, op. 67; Copland: Vitebsk Trio (Study on a Jewish Theme).
Trio Wanderer: Jean-Marc Phillips-Varjabédian (violin), Raphaël Pidoux (cello), Vincent Coq (piano).
Harmonia mundi HMC 901825. DDD. TT 54:49.
Recorded Espace Projection, IRCAM, Paris, May 2003.

In the jungle of Shostakovich recordings, few niches are more crowded than the Second Piano Trio, making it difficult for new arrivals to gain a claw-hold. Not that this seems to serve as any sort of deterrent, for here are three more recent competitors, and another is reviewed below by Judy Kuhn.

Sweden's TrioMats coalesced in 1997, but its members previously had long and distinguished individual careers. Their concise booklet notes suggest a keen awareness of the circumstances surrounding this composition. Sadly, their execution is not up to snuff, right from the excessively raspy cello harmonics that open the Trio. One has a strong sense that the musicians are trying too hard, rushing the second movement to the brink of their technique, heavy handed and plodding in the fourth. There are several instances of dubious intonation throughout the performance. Daphne's recording doesn't do them any favours, reporting an almost indecent amount of heavy breathing in the third movement. The coup de grace is a high-frequency electronic whine that slides in and out of the background.

Founded in the same year as TrioMats, Trio Rachmaninoff de Montréal is as multinational as its home city, hailing from France (Laré), Russia (Kononova) and Bulgaria (Yotcheva). They have a less adversarial relationship with Shostakovich's score than TrioMats, conveying more varied emotion, exemplified by highly expressive cello work in the third movement and true desperation from all players in the fourth. Laré shines with his nimble-fingered pianism. Again, though, there are technical disappointments, mainly concerning Kononova's pizzicato articulation. The repeated col legno clacks from Fig. 100/8:23 of the fourth movement are also unsuccessful, no two sounding the same.

The Trio Wanderer are in a higher performance tier. Shostakovich's score is a thicket of detailed markings for the string players, but this poses no hardship to either Phillips-Varjabédian or Pidoux, who have secure mastery of the varied means of coaxing sound from their instruments.

Following their high-octane first movement, the Wanderers' gangly gestures strongly suggest the forced nature of the gaiety in the second. This gives way to the genuine emotions of their Largo, which goes beyond sorrow to anguish, succeeded by utter loneliness. This reading is one of the most eloquent translations I have encountered of Shostakovich's loss of his beloved friend Ivan Sollertinsky.

The Wanderers' fourth movement is similarly transfixing, replacing private grief with historic dread. There is a cruel sting to the violin's pizzicato Es in the opening bars, and in the central climax, the extra emphasis Coq places on the slurred rocking motif (A-Gb) extinguishes any doubt that his leaden-footed dance is performed under duress. At the end, literal adherence to the molto vibrato indication that heralds the final Adagio section extinguishes the violin's plaintive personality.

David Fanning has pointed out in Gramophone that the violin and cello do not apply mutes as instructed in the score at Fig. 92/7:24 of the fourth movement, for the reprise of the Trio's first theme. I concur that this thwarts the potential of this moment, as Fanning so eloquently puts it, "to convey a sense of impotent struggle, of a passionate lament almost strangled in the throat." I am not quite as ready, however, to write off the otherwise sterling performance on account of this omission, regrettable as it is.

Certainly there is no cause for complaint with the Trio Wanderer's performance of Shostakovich's under-appreciated Piano Trio No. 1. Without discarding the prickly seeds in this fruit of teenaged passion, the Wanderers give exquisite expression to its romantic intercourse. I have not encountered any truly unacceptable recordings of this short opus, but much prefer this one to the rather cold version by Kagan, Gutman and Wirssaladze (Live Classics LCL 110), reviewed below by Iain Strachan.

The third piece on Trio Wanderer's programme, from the pen of Jewish-American composer Aaron Copland, makes a fitting companion, sharing much of the experimental spikiness of Shostakovich's First Trio and heavily dependent upon Jewish motifs like his Second. Of his Vitebsk Trio, Copland wrote, "It was my intention to reflect the harshness and drama of Jewish life in White Russia." Thus, the bold, angular delivery of the Wanderers is wholly appropriate.

Not content with attacking the Shostakovich salient for their very first recording venture, TrioMats have simultaneously opened up fronts with Ravel and Beethoven. Their robust style seems better suited to Beethoven's Ghost Trio than Ravel's shimmering masterpiece, but as with Shostakovich's Second Trio, there are much stronger competitors in both works.

Trio Rachmaninoff supply a thoughtful recital of the Tchaikovsky Trio with which their disc begins. Here again, the field of recordings is crowded. This work is not, I must confess, a personal favourite; I have never warmed to its asymmetrical design and proliferation of variations. It is also debatable whether this coupling makes for a satisfying programme. Although both works are dedicated to dearly departed friends, the much longer Tchaikovsky Trio does not come close to the intensity of emotion in the Shostakovich.

Of these three discs, then, the only one likely to take root is the Wanderers'. Harmonia mundi's realistic recording does them proud.

W. Mark Roberts
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DSCH No. 22.
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