The Glasshouse

Fanny Mendelssohn Trio in D minor Op.11
Gabriel Fauré Trio in D minor Op.120
Franz Schubert Trio No.2 in E flat D929

The ‘Bridge’ in the Trio’s title acknowledges a love of English music and its successful recordings of Frank Bridge.  The Trio performs regularly at Kings Place and the Wigmore Hall, and has its own annual festival in Winchester. Its most recent recordings have been of the ‘Leipzig Circle’ – Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn alongside Clara’s husband and Fanny’s brother.

The D minor Trio was written in the last year of Fanny Mendelssohn’s short life and may be considered her greatest masterpiece.  Schubert’s even shorter life was crowned by so many ‘final’ masterpieces, including this trio, with its unforgettable cello melody in the slow movement.  Gabriel Fauré’s only piano trio was also a late work, first performed in 1923 in honour of his 78th birthday.

Everything here is played with sensitivity and conviction. The three players summon up the whirlwind that opens Fanny’s Trio in fine style, and the energy never flags, with a lilting, lifting rhythmic alertness in the two inner movements and a real sense of the mood shifting Sturm und Drang that drives Robert’s Trio. Gramophone, 2019