In this third volume of their Beethoven piano trio cycle (the first and second were reviewed 4/91 and 3/92), the Castle Trio go back to the very beginning, not only bringing us the second of the three works of Op. 1 (1795) excluded from their first, but also the endearingly bland, still earlier (1790-91) little E flat Trio never published by the composer himself. The disc is completed by the Clarinet Trio of 1798 which (unlike their Czech rivals in a recently reissued Le Chant du Monde complete cycle) they play with the composer's optional violin in place of the more pungent clarinet. We're told that the keyboard used by Lambert Orkis is neither the copy of the Viennese Walter heard in Vol. 1 nor the bigger Graf chosen for Vol. 2 (containing the Archduke), but a copy of a South German Louis Dulcken fortepiano (and I loved the delicate harp-like glints of its top register) alongside Marilyn McDonald's 1665 Stainer violin and Kenneth Slowik's 1748 Grosset cello.
The profoundest music in these 71 comparatively carefree minutes comes in the Largo con espressione of the G major Trio, Op. 1 No. 2. Though allowing themselves a minute and a half longer than the Czechs, I still thought the Castle's tempo just a shade too fast for this wonderful E major movement to speak as it can. It was certainly here, as also to a lesser extent in the Adagio of the B flat Trio, Op. 11, that I confess to sometimes wishing that the violin and cello were not quite so pure, i.e. that they had allowed themselves just a little more vibrato when singing lovely tunes. But that said, let me hasten to add that there's not an 'academic' note on the disc. Everything comes up as newly minted, thanks to these American artists' rhythmic alacrity, their piquant accentuation, their exceptionally bold dynamic contrasts, their sharp-witted repartee... and even their humour. Once again, I particularly admired the inexhaustible imaginative vitality of Orkis at the keyboard. The recording is as vivid as the playing.'