The music of Saint-Saëns
has been enjoying something of a boost
from the recording companies over the
last decade or so. The new Hyperion
recording of the composer’s accessible
Piano Trios follows hard on the heels
of a well received 2005 Harmonia Mundi
recording with the Trio Wanderer. This
review compares both the above recordings.
Saint-Saëns’ First
Piano Trio was composed in the year
(1863) that he failed, for the second
time, as a candidate for the prestigious
Prix de Rome and in so doing
earned, one of the judges, Berlioz’s
celebrated stinging remark, ‘knows everything,
but lacks inexperience’. A tad harsh!
Because as Robert Philip writing in
the Hyperion booklet rightly remarks,
"he was out of tune with the establishment
[but] had a reputation as a brilliant
maverick espousing unfashionable composers
and causes".
This Piano Trio is
thought to have been inspired by a holiday
in the Pyrenees. The opening Allegro
vivace has fresh, ‘open-air’ charm
with springy syncopations and a dance-like
character with ever-changing harmonies.
The Florestan Trio’s reading is light-hearted,
the music romping forward gaily and
there is a nice breezy atmosphere of
childhood innocence. Harmoni Mundi’s
Trio Wanderer is just as vibrant, but
a little rougher edged, more unsophisticatedly
bucolic; no bad thing considering its
inspiration. Vincent Coq’s piano brings
a delightful free springiness to the
music. In the Andante second
movement, the Harmonia Mundi players
are more successful in realising the
folk music element of France’s mountain
regions, particularly the drone, sounding,
one imagines, just like the hurdy-gurdy
or vielle. The Wanderers accentuate
that much more its characteristic tug
of the rosined wheel at the end of each
phrase. The Florestan Trio’s version
of this movement is attractive, more
tentative perhaps, but dynamic enough
and the lovely middle section is beautifully
and dreamily sorrowful. There is an
endearing rustic quality about the Trio’s
Scherzo as it struts perkily
along. Appealing wit and cheeky phrasing
are on offer from the Florestan’s violinist
Anthony Marwood while Trio Wanderer
are jauntier still, their reading just
that much more bouncy and fiery. The
Wanderer Trio’s concluding Allegro is
quite as jolly and outgoing as that
of Florestan but the Harmonia Mundi
players etch in more light and shade.
Both versions of this
gorgeous Trio in F major are attractive
but at a pinch and if I had to choose
it would be the Harmonia Mundi recording.
Twenty-eight years
were to pass before a much more conservative
and anti-Wagnerian Saint-Saëns
wrote his five-movement Second Piano
Trio in E minor. The structure of the
work has two significant outer movements,
book-ending three shorter movements,
with, quite unusually, a brief Andante.
Except for the fast waltz-based fourth
movement, the Trio Wanderer adopt consistently
faster tempi than their Hyperion rivals.
The opening movement
was thought to have been inspired by
Tchaikovsky’s grand Piano Trio. Indeed,
the two composers had become friendly
when they met in Moscow in the 1870s.
Beginning rather sombrely it opens out
into a structure spanning a wide emotional
range. The Florestan reading, 1¼ minutes
longer than that of the Wanderer, allows
the music to breathe. There is time
to explore it more leisurely, its intimate
as well as its proudly defiant moments,
its waltz-like lilts and its relaxed
lullaby figures. I particularly enjoyed
the lovely episode at the heart of the
movement, commencing at 4:50 where the
piano repeatedly and dreamily sings
the lovely simple three-note tune while
the violin and cello gently weave tender
comment. The Wanderer are not so well
balanced or as exquisite here. Their
reading is more urgent, more trenchant,
agitated - but it does bound along infectiously.
The Allegretto is a sort of irregular
minuet, light and graceful in the hands
of the Wanderer. At other moments there
is a rougher edge and more violence
by comparison with the more relaxed
view of the gentle Florestan. The Florestan
display heartfelt pleading in the lovely
Andante and their dying phrases
at its end are delectable. The Wanderer
players’ Andante is pretty, their
performance more passionate, more accentuated.
Both Trios deliver frothy waltzes for
the fourth movement Grazioso,
pocco allegro with the Florestan’s
reading a tad more restrained but more
characterful. But it is the Wanderer
Trio that is the most persuasive in
the Finale. The two approaches are quite
different. The Florestan players lagging
behind their rivals by over one minute
are more solemn, the atmosphere quite
liturgical and their fugue deliberate
and very Bach-like. The Wanderers are
brisker, rhythmically much more energetic
and pliable; in their hands the music
bounds along to an exhilaratingly powerful
climax.
Two splendid but different
performances of Saint-Saëns’ accessible
and lyrical Piano Trios. Each will appeal
according to one’s mood. If pushed I
would choose the Wanderer for the First
Trio and the Florestan for the Second.
Ian Lace
see also review
by Tony Haywood (May
RECORDING OF THE MONTH)
for
details
Florestan Trio (Anthony Marwood (violin), Richard
Lester (cello), Susan Tomes (piano)) 
