This must be a unique coupling. Schoenberg’s irrefutable masterpiece continues to prosper in the studio: standard recommendations would include the augmented Hollywood Quartet’s debut recording of the work in its sextet form (Testament, 4/94), the opulent string orchestra version by Herbert von Karajan’s Berliners (DG, 3/75) and the bracing historically informed challenge of Kenneth Slowik’s Smithsonian Chamber Players (DHM, 2/97 – nla – and Dorian). There have even been several stabs at the present reduction for piano trio, although I am not sure how often one would want to revisit the score in a transmogrification that so tames it however idiomatic the rewrite. Eduard Steuermann’s treatment dates from 1932, a decade after the private musical performances with which the composer was involved in Vienna and Prague, and the booklet-note, very detailed on the substance of the music (which is perhaps as it should be), does not throw much light on why the transcription was undertaken. The arranger, himself a Schoenberg pupil and collaborator, was a pedagogue, composer and highly accomplished pianist whom older readers may remember in the latter guise. Uncle of the conductor Michael Gielen, he had Hollywood connections via his sister (who co wrote screenplays for Greta Garbo) and her son, the writer Peter Viertel, who married Deborah Kerr.

Which brings us neatly to the Korngold Piano Trio. His first published composition, it attracted the advocacy of Bruno Walter (as pianist) with violinist Arnold Rosé and cellist Friedrich Buxbaum – young Erich was nothing if not well connected. It is an amazing piece to have come from the pen of a boy of 12 yet, even if his proto-Hollywood idiom had arrived almost fully formed, the yearning lyricism and not-quite Straussian harmonic spicing there from the start, it seems a little cruel to pair these works. The diffuse recording, more cathedral than palm court, suits the Schoenberg better than the Korngold, whose crisper pianistic novelties are badly smudged. Nor is string tone much flattered, edginess blighting higher-lying passages. The Fidelio Trio may be committed exponents of the Korngold in concert but the efforts of Glenn Dicterow, Alan Stepansky and Israela Margalit (last featured in physical format on an EMI Gemini twofer) are more deftly focused.