This is inspired programming: piano trios by one well-known composer and two less familiar women composers. Amy Beach’s 1939 A Minor Piano Trio (Op. 150!) was composed in the last years of her long life and is essentially expansive in mood, if not length, romantic and nostalgic in tone. Perhaps it’s the piano equivalent of Rachmaninov’s Third Symphony or Finzi’s Cello Concerto. The Gould Trio handles this piece beautifully, especially in the central Lento espressivo where the music really billows out.
I was surprised that the Charles Ives piece utilised what became his usual polytonal/polyrhythmic schtick so early in his composing career: in the central movement of his Piano Trio we hear fragments of My Old Kentucky Home etc. It wore thin pretty quickly with me, I’m afraid, and...
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