The Beethoven piano trio marketplace hardly lacks for outstanding recordings, as recent entries from the Abegg, Vienna Piano, Parnassus, and Kalichstein/Laredo/Robinson ensembles prove. Yet even this esteemed roster can make room for pianist Freddy Kempf and his cohorts, whose individual and collective agility dazzles the ear and serves the composer well. They unleash all of the early C minor trio's combative energy in the outer movements while observing each and every dynamic marking in its proper perspective. The musicians bring such warmth and infinite nuance to the Andante cantabile variations (the pianist's shifts of voicing on the repeats) that you hardly notice the more-expansive-than-usual basic tempo.

Similar refinement of detail and sensitivity prevails throughout the "Archduke". Notice, for instance, the subtle rhetorical adjustments in the Scherzo and the breathtaking give-and-take characterizing the stepwise motives and scale passages. The musicians' deftly effected transitions between the great slow movement variations are worth noting, as well as the extraordinary tonal control with which they shape the Finale's rapid figurations. Either in conventional two-channel stereo or SACD surround-sound playback, BIS's intimate, full-bodied, and ravishing sonics will please even the pickiest audiophile. Certainly this release bodes well for a complete Beethoven cycle from the Kempf trio, and represents its pianist's finest playing on disc to date. [11/29/2004]

--Jed Distler