The Strad Issue: July 2026

Description: A recently formed group makes an ear-catching debut

Musicians: Amsterdam Piano Trio

Works: Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht (arr.Guittart). Tchaikovsky: Piano Trio

Catalogue number: HYPERION CDA68485

The first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio is symphonic in scale and orchestral in texture, features that the Amsterdam Piano Trio here proudly conveys. Yet, as the score indicates, the players retain an ‘elegiaco’ mood to the opening too. There is ear-tickling light and shade in the accompanying figuration, but each player is also unhesitatingly soloistic. The Adagio con duolo return of the first theme is suitably dark-toned. The theme of the second movement could have a more simple charm but there’s a broad range of expression in what follows, from the crystalline scherzoso third variation and wondrous mystery of var.9 to the sheer monumentality of var.7 and the vigorous fugue of var.8.

In a neat juxtaposition, the closing funereal tread of the Tchaikovsky leads naturally into the still drone that opens Verklärte Nacht and underpins an at first fragile beauty. The intensity of emotion here enters a deeper, psychological realm, with the players brilliantly capturing the atmosphere of the moonlit wood and the trauma of the woman who has conceived a child by an absent father. The arrangement for piano trio by Henk Guittart, largely avoiding important melodic material in the piano, works very well, but overall it’s the high quality of the playing that shines through.

EDWARD BHESANIA