Gould Piano Trio: Marschner

The Strad Issue: February 2025

Description: Chamber music from a figure best remembered for his operas

Musicians: Gould Piano Trio

Works: Marschner: Piano Trios nos.1 and 7

Catalogue number: NAXOS 8.574612

‘Marschner was least successful in the realm of instrumental music’, opines The New Grove. Indeed, think of Marschner and the primary association today is with opera, though among the works of which he was proudest are a series of seven piano trios, published between 1823 and 1855. No less a figure than Schumann regarded them highly.

And he was right to do so. The A minor First Trio is a work of assurance and drive, its post-Beethoven sound world anticipating Schumann and, even more so, Mendelssohn. The lyricism of the slow movement devolves to something more harmonically troubled and searching, while the Scherzo is evanescent. Schumann’s criticism that Marschner was happiest spinning out melody with accompaniment in place of contrapuntal development, is, however, borne out in the outer movements.

By the time of the F major Seventh Trio, Marschner is his own man. Still in evidence are his lyric impulse and predilection for pleasing harmonic side-slips, but they’re now more fully integrated within a framework that is dramatic and compelling on its own terms, if still dependent more on the exposition of ideas than on their exploration. These appear to be the first high-profile recordings of this music, and the Gould Piano Trio sounds completely at home: Lucy Gould’s lithe violin tone is a constant pleasure, with Richard Lester’s cello a crucial anchoring presence, grounding Marschner’s fingery piano-writing, ably tackled by Benjamin Frith, finely recorded at the Wyastone Concert Hall.

DAVID THREASHER