Gernot Süssmuth, Ramón Jaffé: Liebmann

The Strad Issue: September 2025

Description: A piano trio of real substance is the gem on this album

Musicians: Gernot Süssmuth (violin) Ramón Jaffé (cello) Monica Gutman (piano)

Works: Liebmann: Violin Sonata in B flat major; Cello Sonata in B flat major; Piano Trio in A major

Catalogue number: CPO 555 638-2

The exploration of marginalised voices that so energises today’s new release schedules continues with a fascinating programme of three works by Helene Liebmann. Born Helene Riese in 1795, her life spanned much of the middle part of the 19th century, although the few works that remain – no more than 20 of them – were all published between 1811 and 1817.

Liebmann was distantly related to the Mendelssohns, sharing a great-great-grandfather in the court cantor Daniel Itzig. Her musical language, though, leans on this evidence more towards Viennese models. Each of the three pieces here (from 1813 to 1816) is in three movements, with the weight of invention concentrated on the first movement. Melodic sweetness is a priority: think of Beethoven in lyrical mood and you’re not far from Liebmann’s sound world in the two sonatas.

Of the three works, though, the Piano Trio comes closest to a masterpiece, elegantly written, formally cogent and with a more searching harmonic and emotional range than the sonatas: well worth repeated hearings, not least for its spirited polonaise finale. The artwork’s pastoral scene by the river at Twickenham nods to the fact that the Liebmanns lived for a time in London and Helene composed the Piano Trio there.

The slightly diffuse Baden-Baden studio acoustic is kinder to Süssmuth’s violin than to Jaffé’s cello, but this is a worthwhile introduction to estimable music that deserves to be heard.

DAVID THREASHER