The Vienna Piano Trio offers a magnificent account of the unjustly neglected B-flat trio’s first movement, with a limpid opening followed by a taut and charismatic attack on the music’s rapid passages. But this comes at a price. The Adagio molto e mesto sounds neither very slow nor particularly sad, though the last two movements share the same general virtues as the first. In the great F minor trio we hear a similar general approach: taut and energetic outer movements, but a distressingly glib Poco Adagio (surely too “poco”) and in this case a driving scherzo whose quick basic tempo obscures the necessary tension between the “two-against-three” rhythm of its main section. Although the playing as such is technically impeccable and well balanced, and the recording is very fine, these versions simply don’t capture the full expressive range of the music. Given very strong competition from the Suk Trio on Supraphon or the Joachim Trio on Naxos (among others), there’s little reason to pay a premium price here.
