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Reviews: Haydn: 9 Piano Trios - Beaux Arts Trio

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Reviews: 4

Site review by Castor June 6, 2009
Performance:   Sonics:    
The text for this review has been moved to the new site. You can read it here:

http://www.HRAudio.net/showmusic.php?title=5849#reviews

Site review by Polly Nomial August 29, 2010
Performance:   Sonics:  
The text for this review has been moved to the new site. You can read it here:

http://www.HRAudio.net/showmusic.php?title=5849#reviews

Review by canonical May 17, 2009 (11 of 12 found this review helpful)
Performance:   Sonics:  
This 2-disc set has been a splendid double surprise for me.

The 9 Piano Trios included here are:

Piano Trio in F, Hob XV:2
Piano Trio in B flat, Hob XV:8
Piano Trio in F, Hob XV:6
Piano Trio in G, Hob XV:5
Piano Trio in E flat, Hob XV:10

Piano Trio in D, Hob XV:7
Piano Trio in A, Hob XV:9
Piano Trio in E minor, Hob XV:12
Piano Trio in E flat, Hob XV:11


* Surprise the first: fabulous pieces

I am not generally a Haydn fan - I find that his multitude of symphonies leave me generally uninspired ... and that the choral works tend towards being heavy-handed. And even though I have played the violin part in the Gypsy piano trio, I have never really gotten to know the Piano trios. But I had clearly ignored them to my own detriment .. they are wonderfully elegant pieces. The original Beaux Arts Trio (Menahem Pressler, Isidore Cohen and Bernard Greenhouse) are legends of the chamber music world ... and their performances here are everything you might hope for... and then more. Stylish, polished and simply superb.


* Surprise the second: fabulous sonics

The second surprise for me ... is how absolutely splendid the sonics are. Outrageously good! I can't believe how good. Absolutely delightful. Although originally recorded in 1976 - it sounds like it was recorded in DSD yesterday. It is clean, soooooooo pure, so live, natural and real ... and warm ... and everything a recording could ever be on my SACD stereo set-up. I tried listening to the redbook layer too, just out of interest, and it was comparatively drab, digital and dross. I can't believe the difference the SACD format makes here.

As good as it gets. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

P.S. The dual disc set is sold at a single SACD price -- wunderbar!
P.P.S. For multi-channel fans, the original Philips recordings started life as quadro recordings (RQR) ... so all the multi-channel information is there.

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Review by Hitters May 4, 2012 (6 of 6 found this review helpful)
Performance:   Sonics:  
I have always been an admirer of Menahem Pressler, piano player and leader of the Beaux Arts trio. His playing is witty, gracious, stunningly virtuosic, but mainly very musical. Their recordings of Mendelssohn, Mozart, Brahms, Schubert and Turina have been my references for many years. But I had never listened to their Haydn.

Well, these discs are simply amazing.

Let's state from the very beginning that the music, though enjoyable, is by no means Haydn's most developed, deep or complex. The booklet defines these trios as young, in the sense that they represent some of the very first samples of the genre. The piano dominates the scene most of the time, the violin draws many melodic lines, and the cello is reduced to a simple accompaniment. The pieces are miles away from Haydn's mature String Quartets (the Op. 74 & 76 come to mind as the best examples of an already ripe genre) but they are beautiful and gracious nevertheless. On the light side.

Besides de perfect playing, the surprise for me was the technical level of this recording, made at the Concertgebow in Amsterdam in 1976 (analog, of course). It is simply PERFECT! The naturalness of the sound of the strings is outstanding. I have encountered very few examples of such a wonderful capture of the timbres of these instruments. The overall balance is completely believable. Probably the engineer and knew the venue extremely well and figured exactly were to install the few mics. The perfection of intonation on the strings and the superb quality of the piano only add up to this unique release.

I shall add that, to my surprise, there is nearly no presence of tape hiss in spite being this an analog recording. This might be the result of modern editing gadgets. Welcome!

Warmly recommended. One my top five chamber music SACDs!

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