The Danish Horn Trio are a warmly sympathetic Brahmsian team. But of course the horn dominates in the Brahms Trio‚ and by any standards Jakob Keiding is a remarkably fine player. At the very opening I thought his duplets seemed just a little deliberate‚ but the Allegro sweeps away with surging spontaneity‚ and when that opening theme returns it seems just right. Throughout‚ the music’s Romantic ripeness is fully captured‚ with the Scherzo both fleet and bold as Brahms must be‚ its songful Trio richly lilting. The highlight of the reading is the deeply felt Adagio mesto which has a quite remarkable atmosphere. The feeling here is far more than mesto (‘sorrowful’) – hauntingly mysterious and other­worldly‚ somehow combining the elements of a berceuse and a lament‚ and ending in a mood of infinite sadness. Then the sunshine blazes forth in the ebullient finale‚ the horn galumphing off with glorious vigour‚ the piano and violin romping along beside. At the close Keiding caps the whole performance with that exuberant top E flat. The recording is a bit over­resonant but still immensely vivid. Ligeti entitled his Trio ‘Homage to Brahms’ and he follows Brahms’s four­movement layout‚ though with a Passacaglia­Lament placed as the finale‚ rather than an expression of joy. It would seem an obvious coupling‚ yet Ligeti said of his work that ‘the only thing reminiscent of Brahms is perhaps a certain smilingly conservative comportment – with distinctly ironic distance’ (whatever that means). Calum MacDonald’s lucid notes tell us that in the first movement ‘the three instruments move almost independently of one another‚ forming harmonies that are tonal‚ indeed often triadic‚ and yet without traditional function‚ creating a continual sense of lyric ambivalence.’ The movement is not easy to follow; some may find it almost incoherent. But the Scherzo is wild and brilliant‚ even witty‚ the piano part sometimes recalling Messiaen. The third movement’s ironically brusque Alla marcia is angular‚ jagged‚ and easier to follow; the finale opens magically and arrestingly‚ creating a luminous harmonic atmosphere to introduce an eerily intense five­bar sequence which is (in the composer’s words) a ‘chromatic variation’ of the first three movements. (Again one thinks of Messiaen – the Quatuor pour la fin du temps.) This sequence develops as a mysterious Passacaglia/ Lament which becomes more passionate‚ with a wailing horn soliloquy; then the piano thunders a powerful warning in its lowest register‚ and a passage of near silence follows‚ while the horn resonates piano­pianissimo pedal notes‚ and the music dies away in a spirit of desolation. It is remarkably imaginative and challenging‚ played with extraordinary concentration‚ but I wonder whether all Brahmsians will take to it!