Robert Plane (clarinet) and the Gould Piano Trio

Louise Farrenc was a trailblazing woman composer of the nineteenth century whose clarinet trio exudes charm and sophistication. Although Saint-Saens was only thirty years younger than his compatriot the musical language of his second piano trio, one of the true masterpieces of the literature, could not be more contrasting, and shows him in a much darker, intense world than we might expect from such a grandee of the French musical establishment. In between we hear music from Japan by Toru Takemitsu, whose delicate palette of colour and use of pastel shades can be seen as an Eastern extension of French Impressionism.