This is the first of a promised cycle of Beethoven's Piano Trios complete from these artists, and by complete I mean not just the seven standard works but also the Variations and the incidental WoO movements as well. The little B flat Allegretto of 1812 (WoO39) included here, in rhythmic lilt a cross between a Minuet and a Siciliano, is wholly irresistible—or should I say truly wooing—when done with such spontaneity and charm. The players' own delight in its felicitous exchanges is infectious. Its inclusion is of course a bonus in itself: most rival Archdukes in the catalogue offer no extra.
As for that noble work, I thought the performance masterly. No three artists could be more sensitive in nuance or fastidious in every detail of ensemble, yet there is no sagging of tension. Always they project the music at a true Beethovenian voltage. Younger players than Kempff, Szeryng and Fournier on DG, they perhaps not surprisingly choose livelier tempos for the Scherzo and finale—in my opinion to the music's good. (I just wish they had re-recorded a scrap of the Scherzo's trio section: Ashkenazy, usually so rhythmically taut and crystalline, seems momentarily thrown by the sudden piano in bars 198 and 199. But his little yieldings in the main theme of the finale, in response to Beethoven's espressivo, are very subtle.) In the opening Allegro moderato Ashkenazy, Perlman and Harrell manage to suggest a stronger, or more continuously sustained, momentum even though they are just as unhurried and expansive as their older rivals. The slow movement is beautifully done by both groups, with the newcomers, I think, suggesting a profounder, hymn-like tranquility at the outset, but the older artists allowing themselves a little more wallowing in bliss in the coda. Both recordings are mellow and warm. But the finely balanced new digital one is clearer cut as well as more vivid. I was nevertheless less impressed by the cassette sound, which even with the volume turned up considerably higher than for the disc emerged slightly undernourished—and there was a trace of hiss, too, at this level.'