'All the Sitkovetsky Trio’s positive attributes... are on display in the high spirits of the Ghost’s finale and in the effervescent outer movements of Op 1 No 1.'
"....the Sitkovetsky Trio pair the first of the Op 1 works with perhaps the most startlingly original of the seven full-scale mature trios, the Ghost of 1808. The later work is placed first, bursting out of the traps before giving way to passages of melting lyricism, the interplay between higher and lower strings enjoyed to the full by leader Alexander Sitkovetsky and cellist Isang Enders. The customary crystal clarity of BIS’s sound (in the Markus-Sittikus-Saal, Hohenems) reveals, too, the sinew in the contrapuntal interplay of the development. As for that slow movement, if a group such as, say, the Florestan Trio (at a markedly less sustained tempo) distil a more chilling atmosphere, it’s not for any want of response to the harmonic unease or dynamic shocks on the part of the Sitkovetsky, the strings finding a suitably stark tone and pianist Wu Qian maintaining tension via her exquisitely sensitive touch.
All the Sitkovetsky Trio’s positive attributes, including those identified by Richard Wigmore in his reviews of the previous volumes in this series (6/20, 11/23), are on display in the high spirits of the Ghost’s finale and in the effervescent outer movements of Op 1 No 1, contrast being provided by the early work’s songful Adagio cantabile and by the encore, Enders' own adaptation of a Cossack air, delightful in its simplicity, that Beethoven arranged for the Edinburgh publisher George Thomson.
Excerpted from review by David Threasher for Gramophone Magazine
Read review in full here.
Listen to Beethoven - Piano Trios, Vol. 3 here
Release Date: 9th Aug 2024
Catalogue No: BIS2699
Label: BIS
Length: 60 minutes
Release date: 9 August 2024
Record label: BIS Records
Catalogue number: BIS-2699
Length: 60 minutes
Repertoire: Beethoven: Piano Trio in D Major (Ghost), Op. 70 No. 1; Beethoven: Piano Trio in E-Flat Major, Op. 1; Beethoven: Schöne Minka, ich muss scheiden (arr. Isang Enders)
Artists: Alexander Sitkovetsky, violin; Wu Qian, piano; Isang Enders, cello
Comments