Neave Trio: In Her Hands

The Strad Issue: April 2026

Description: Compelling performances of trios that deserve to be heard more

Musicians: Neave Trio

Works: Chaminade: Piano Trio no.2. Pejačević: Piano Trio no.2. C. Schumann: Piano Trio

Catalogue number: CHANDOS CHAN20368

The US-based Neave Trio has made a specialism of championing female composers recently: this is its third such album. Clara Schumann’s G minor Trio is energetically performed with nicely executed rubato.

Violinist Anna Williams gives the Menuetto melody a lively lift in its Scotch snaps, the Andante is transporting stuff, especially the rapt moment near the end where Mikhail Veselov brings back the theme on the cello and Williams joins him in an ecstatic duet.

Chaminade’s Second Trio, premiered in 1886, is immediately engaging. Its dramatic opening throws us straight into a storm of string tremolandos over a massive, dramatic theme in octaves in the piano, to which Eri Nakamura gives her all.

It’s a piece full of contrasts, exploring different textures to great effect. There’s some fine playing from the strings in octaves in the E major Lento’s long-breathed melody and the third movement’s intricate figures decorating Nakamura’s melody.

Croatian Dora Pejačević’s life fitted within that of the long-lived Chaminade. Her own Second Trio, first performed in 1913, starts off conventionally enough, with plenty of approachable melodies that could have come straight out of a 19th-century ballroom.

The Scherzo is more interesting, angular and texturally adventurous and by the time we get to the Lento we are in a truly original, enchanted world, very much the mystical heart of the work. All is captured in a fresh recorded sound, with a touch of resonance.

JANET BANKS