Composed soon after his 30th birthday, Felix Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No.1 in D minor (Op. 49) is one of the composer’s greatest chamber music compositions… a fine and trenchant work, revealing his genius at getting the utmost definition and detail from a small group of instruments. Clara Schumann’s Op. 17 Piano Trio in G minor elegantly shows off her own admired facility at the keyboard as well as her gift for composing music that shows no little originality and a charm of melody which is all her own.
From the beginning of what was to prove to be his late period, Robert Schumann’s F major Second Piano Trio (Op. 80) moves from episodes of intense melancholy to Spring-fresh lightness to conclude with an engrossing discussion between all three instruments. Here is Schumann at his most endearingly human, the quintessence of Romanticism from a demonstrably original great composer. © SOMM Recordings