Hartley Piano Trio - Spohr: Piano Trios Nos. 2 And 4

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Music reviews of Spohr: Piano Trios Nos. 2 And 4

Music Review: Masterpieces in the genre of piano trio
Rating: 5 Stars

These discs contain complete recording of all piano trios by Louis Spohr. NAXOS bargain price is too low for these beautiful performances!

Louis (Ludwig) Spohr (1784-1859) is known mainly as inventor of conductor's baton and as author of violin concertos (at his time, he was second violinist after Paganini). Some of his 15 violin concertos became basic material for studying violinists. But he had also written a lot of music in all genres (9 symphonies, about 30 string quartets, clarinet concertos, operas, etc.). His music had influence on such great composers as Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms. During his lifetime, he was considered as great composer of the Beethoven range. Unfortunately, in XX century the most of his music was put in oblivion, and only now we can observe slow revival of Spohr.

If someone considers Spohr as second-level author of simple and boring music, these 3 discs is the best way to change this opinion. All piano trios (and Quintet) demonstrate uniform high quality. Parts written in major tonality are not less attractive than minor-tonality parts. Technically, Spohr achieves an ideal balance between piano and strings. But above all, this is simply music of true beauty. I would place them together with the best piano trios of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert. And Spohr doesn't copy musical style of his great contemporaries; he has his own language - this is very quiet, melodic and highly poetic music.

I haven't heard complete recordings of Spohr trios, which were produced by CPO (several years ago, CPO also recorded all violin concertos by Spohr). Nevertheless, NAXOS performances (by Hartley Piano Trio) are very good. Discs are also supplied by very informative notes by Keith Warsop, Chairman of Spohr Society of Great Britain.

If my recommendation will be useful to someone, I would also recommend him to purchase Spohr's disk produced by MD&G (MDG 307 0849-2). This disk contains two of most beautiful and mature works by Spohr - Concerto for String Quartet op.131 and Grand Nonet Op.31, in excellent performances by Leipziger Streichquartett, Leipziger Kammerorchester and Ensemble Villa Musica.

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