Saint-Saens: Piano Trios Nos.1 & 2

Amazon.com The Florestan Trio has given us many outstanding CDs. Here's another, of Saint-Saens's contrasting pair of Piano Trios. The First is a gem, full of lovely melodies and virtuoso turns by the players. Pianist Susan Tomes does the brilliant piano part with gorgeous tone and rhythmic bounce. Listen to the Andante movement, drawn from folk sources and played to the hilt by the Florestans. The Second Trio, from 1892, is notable for its unusual five-movement structure--large-scale outer movements flank three short inner ones. In the center is an Andante that packs a lot of power in its brief timespan, especially when played with the Florestan’s intensity. Alongside some fascinating fugal writing, Saint-Saens provides a strikingly virtuosic piano part and string writing that displays the many colors commanded by the Florestan's violinist and cellist. In both works, balances are ideal, the sound transparent. Here's a perfect introduction to Saint-Saens's chamber music. -- Dan Davis Product Description Despite being the composer of innumerable works in all genres from grand opera to piano miniature, Saint-Saens today is known largely for his third symphony (the ‘Organ’ Symphony), the piano concertos (award-winningly recorded by Stephen Hough on Hyperion) and the omnipresent Carnival of the animals (a work its composer did his best to suppress). The two piano trios, composed in 1863 and 1892, stand at the apogee of his neglected chamber music output, and their place in a genre the composer held dear is reflected in their quality. Piano Trio No 1 was Saint-Saens’s first truly successful work. Inspired by the terrain and folk music of the French Pyrenees, it has a breezy simplicity, its open lyricism—naïvete even—offering so much more than 1860s opera-mad France could ever have realized. The second trio is a more serious and subtle work; the intervening decades had seen Saint-Saens retreat from a world in which he felt increasing marginalized. From self-imposed exile in Algeria he sent this work to the world as a postcard firmly reiterating his belief in the values of traditional form and melody. Performances by The Florestan Trio are every bit as committed and polished as we have come to expect from their many previous acclaimed recordings.
ASIN: B000ENC6PU
VSKU: DBV.B000ENC6PU.G
Condition: Good
Author/Artist:C. Saint-Saens|The Florestan Trio
Binding: Audio cd