A fourth volume confirms the mastery of the music and the musicians
The Strad Issue: April 2025
Description: A fourth volume confirms the mastery of the music and the musicians
Musicians: Gaspard Trio
Works: Haydn: Piano Trios vol.4: nos.26, 36, 31 and 34. Beamish: Trance
Catalogue number: Chandos CHAN20330
Suppose, counterfactually, neither Mozart nor Beethoven had been forging their masterworks at around the time these works were composed? The answer is unequivocal: we’d be celebrating Haydn’s sparkling trios, rather than consigning them to an opener role in concerts. The melodies are enchanting, by turns charming and poignant; the harmony is strikingly brilliant and sometimes audacious, while structurally these are tremendously cohesive works. Haydn, as is his wont, revels in the unexpected and the four trios here provide surprises in abundance.
The Gaspard Trio offers compelling performances, demonstrating a complete mastery of this repertoire. The musicians use a modern set-up on their instruments, adopting a lightness of texture without self-consciously emulating period performance. Cellist Vashti Hunter offers impeccably chiselled bass lines, while the cascading piano passagework glitters like sequins under the fingers of Nicholas Rimmer. Equally, Jonian Ilias Kadesha shapes the violin melodies in exquisite conversation with the piano, a clear and warm recording providing icing on the cake.
Sally Beamish’s Trance, written in 2023 for this ensemble, is given a supremely eloquent performance. It depicts a series of memories, as the composer’s mother gradually succumbs to the destructive forces of dementia. As her persona fades, the instruments, which had hitherto woven in and out of the texture, fade likewise, creating an extremely poignant impact.
JOANNE TALBOT
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