Haydn’s flute trios of 1790 are exhilarating, but at fractionally under 55 minutes’ total playing time you’d need good reasons for paying over the odds to have them on CD. The D major trio, the best known, receives an agile performance here, bringing some tastefully nuanced interjections in dialogue passages of the opening allegro. Pleasing splashes of color are added by the keyboard player in the central andante, too, but there’s little dynamic gradation throughout these period-instrument accounts. During the two-movement F major trio these Finnish players sound particularly well balanced, especially in the witty minuet. Their reading of the trio in G is characterized by spirited tempos and nicely-sprung rhythms. Mikael Helasvuo’s flute has a less brilliant timbre than Konrad Hünteler’s, however, in an identical program from Harmonia Mundi, also featuring Patrick Cohen (harpsichord) and Christoph Coin (cello). For Harmonia Mundi Cohen and Coin produce a slightly firmer bass line (the cello mostly doubles the keyboard’s left hand part) without clouding the flute’s lower register, however these marginal sonic gains come at more than twice the price of this Apex disc, whose performances certainly are comparable.
