Andreas Staier - Schubert’a Piano Trios album review: lean, austere and beautiful

Schubert’s wonderful pair of late piano trios are here coupled with the single-movement Notturno believed to be a rejected slow movement from the first one.

They are both large-scale works, and the length of the second was enough to bring rejection from one publisher. One of the joys of these new period instruments performances is the way the three instruments can both blend and stand out from one another, and the filigree of Andreas Staier’s fortepiano is a wonder in itself.

The sound world may be a little leaner and more austere than usual, but the players accommodate it beautifully to the music’s geniality and melancholy, as well as its climactic rushes.

[ harmoniamundi.com ]