Recently WXXI Classical received a five-CD set of Beethoven Piano Trios featuring the Beaux Arts Trio. The artists include Menahem Pressler; piano, Isidor Cohen; violin and Bernard Greenhouse; cello.
The Beaux Arts Trio performed together for 53 years. They started out at the Berkshire Music Festival (Tanglewood) and they gave their last performance there, in 2008. They toured throughout the USA, Japan, Germany, Russia, Israel and Brazil. They were in residence at the Library of Congress and have performed at two Olympic Games.
Beethoven is credited with seven piano trios during his lifetime. There were several more works that were not published until after his death.
He started to compose piano trios when he arrived in Vienna in 1794; his first three were composed when he was just twenty-five years old. At that time, Haydn was one of the most popular composers in Vienna.
The most famous of Beethoven's trios is known as the "Archduke" Trio, dedicated to the Archduke Rudolph of Austria. Beethoven’s fifth piano trio was give the name "The Ghost" by pianist, composer Carl Czerny, who was a pupil and friend of Beethoven. Czerny thought that the slow movement reminded him of the ghost in Macbeth.
Beethoven composed his piano trios with the same passion as his string quartets, and these performances reflect the composer’s passion for this music.
I enjoyed listening to this complete set of Beethoven Piano Trios with the Beaux Arts Trio and I think that you’ll like them, too. The group has been known to set the standard for piano trio performance. You’ll find this 5 CD set on the Philips label.
