Busch Trio: Beethoven

The Strad Issue: November 2025

Description: A young trio makes its mark in a much-recorded field

Musicians: Busch Trio

Works: Beethoven: Piano Trios vol.1: no.1, no.3, no.4 ‘Gassenhauer’

Catalogue number: ALPHA ALPHA1164

The Busch Trio has already impressed in Dvořák and Schubert, Ravel and Shostakovich, and now embarks on a project to record Beethoven’s complete trios. Keen awareness of style and a vividly communicated affection for whatever it plays are hallmarks of the group’s recordings, and these attributes are prominent in this first instalment.

The ebullience of its Schubert trios would suggest the Busch as a natural for the young Beethoven’s first published works, and so it transpires in the playful op.1 no.1, the musicians’ rapport evident – the fact the cellist and pianist are brothers is a clear boon, and the lithe tone of violinist Mathieu van Bellen’s 1783 Guadagnini (appropriately the ‘ex-Adolf Busch’) fitting in as if instinctively. That’s not the whole story, though, as these players spin a spellbinding atmosphere in the more ambivalent emotional shadows of the Adagio cantabile.

In the C minor work, op.1 no.3, they use the full range of dynamics on offer to enhance not only tautness of ensemble but an intensity and integrity that commands the attention through to its explosive finale. And if the ‘Gassenhauer’ (originally for clarinet, cello and piano but sanctioned by the composer to be played by piano trio) in this line-up doesn’t quite have the siren-like call to attention of the clarinet version, that’s but a small price to pay.

The recording, at the Art Deco Flagey in Brussels, favours the piano just slightly; in places you might feel that the full depth of cello tone is not quite captured by the mics. Nevertheless, this is an auspicious opening salvo in the Busch’s Beethoven odyssey.

DAVID THREASHER