A second volume of trios from an operatic master
The Strad Issue: September 2025
Description: A second volume of trios from an operatic master
Musicians: Gould Piano Trio
Works: Marschner: Piano Trios nos.2 and 6
Catalogue number: NAXOS 8.574682
The Gould Piano Trio continues its pincer-movement Marschner survey with his second and penultimate essays in the genre. The G minor Second Trio followed the First in 1841 after a gap of 18 years and shares the assurance and drive I identified in the earlier work (The Strad, February 2025) but with the fully individual voice that hadn’t quite come into focus by 1823. It’s tempting to spot passing Schumannisms here and there – Schumann expressed his admiration for Marschner’s trios – but of course his own piano trios lay in the future, so the tone Marschner strikes, so far removed from Beethoven and Schubert, is entirely his own.
The second movement of the G minor Trio is designated ‘Romance’ but builds to something more disquieting than that simple label implies, while the Scherzo is a romp whose irresistible rhythmic impetus carries over into the finale. The first movement’s oblique agitation is complemented in the C minor Sixth Trio with a more assertive opening that then contrasts with greater lyricism later on. A sort of Mendelssohnian innocence in the Andante sostenuto then leads into an equally Mendelssohnian scampering Scherzo, the whole rounded off with another frothy finale.
As before, the Gould Trio proves an unstinting advocate on a recording (in the beautiful Wyastone acoustic) that provides pleasure throughout. This may not be the most searching music, but it is all constructed with skill and no small amount of aural imagination, which is recommendation in itself.
DAVID THREASHER
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