BBC Music Magazine, Erik Levi
Five Stars
…
… even greater dividends can accrue from performances given by long-established chamber ensembles that have grappled with the work’s many interpretative challenges, not least unifying its sprawling design. Such qualities are very much to the fore in this beautifully recorded performance from the Gould Piano Trio.
“Its players follow the composer’s directions to the letter, bringing a natural flow to the various difficult changes in tempo in the first movement and mapping its emotional narrative most convincingly. Likewise they bring freshness, panache, charm and infinite variety to the second movement variations.”
Highlights include a brilliantly characterised fugue and the ensuing impressionistic Andante flebile which recalls the melancholic introversion from the opening of the piece.
In the finale, Benjamin Frith impressively negotiates Tchaikovsky’s full-blooded piano writing without coarsening the tone…
…the Goulds adopt more subtle timbral effects in the mysterious string passage work that accompanies some of the impassioned melodies.
