Zilliacus Trio: Kahn

The Strad Issue: January 2026

Description: Committed musicality brings a German late Romantic to life

Musicians: Zilliacus Trio, Oliver Triendl (piano)

Works: Kahn: Piano Quartets nos.1–3; Serenade for String Trio

Catalogue number: CPO 555150-2

Robert Kahn (1865–1951) was born the same year as Sibelius, though he died a few years earlier, and his music was widely performed in his native Germany during his lifetime. For over 35 years he taught at the Berlin Musikhochschule, where his students included Wilhelm Kempff. Amid Nazi persecution, he immigrated to England in 1939. His influences included Brahms, Mendelssohn and Schumann but, as this release clearly shows, his voice was his own.

Kahn favours brusque, dramatic first-movement openings but also displays an appealing lyricism and a flowing conversational counterpoint – all features that are richly revealed in these performances. In almost all the slow movements, what appears simple on the page can be profound when realised with commitment and musicality, as is beautifully demonstrated in the Larghetto of the Piano Quartet no.2, its gently flowing lullaby expertly underpinned by Kati Raitinen’s walking pizzicato bass-line. Elsewhere the musicians point up Kahn’s rhythmic crosscurrents, as in the First Piano Quartet’s finale.

The playing all round is of a very high standard – stylish and eloquent – matched by a recording that fully reveals the overall blend while retaining the instruments’ individual colourings.

EDWARD BHESANIA