The Berlin-based Feininger Piano Trio embark upon a project to record the three Brahms trios, coupling them with music by three Viennese composers who fell under Brahms’s influence. First up is the Op 3 Trio in D minor (1896) by Alexander Zemlinsky – a work in which the 25-year-old composer takes it upon himself to out‑Brahms Brahms in a work of vaunting ambition and not a little cumulative power.

It was conceived as a clarinet trio, in which form it impressed Brahms, who recommended it to his publisher, Simrock, who nevertheless persuaded the composer to recast it for the standard piano trio. While Zemlinsky rewrote the clarinet part to take in the abilities and range of the violin, the work remains best known (on disc, at least) in its clarinet version, so the chance to hear the alternative is certainly worthwhile. It presents a variety of challenges, both physical and interpretative, to its players – challenges that are met head-on and surmounted by the Feininger Trio. The Chamber Music Hall of the Berlin Philharmonie offers an ideal forum for a work such as this, and AVI-Music’s engineering allows sufficient air around the sound so that Zemlinsky’s closely voiced writing never becomes clotted.

The Brahms coupling, perhaps counterintuitively, is the compact, concentrated Third Trio. Perhaps it’s unfair to use a late work by the pre-eminent chamber composer of the era to illuminate the ambitious work of a comparative youngster but the innate control of material in Op 101 shows what Zemlinsky was missing. For all his harmonic ingenuity (especially in the richly chromatic central Andante) and developmental nous, at this stage he couldn’t quite bring his themes to the point of catharsis that makes the Brahms so satisfying. In comparison with the older man’s concision and unerring feel for the dramatic contour of the music, Zemlinsky’s Trio comes over as a great deal of huffing and puffing to little ultimate effect. Still, such is the way the music exists, and that is non-negotiable. The Feininger players convey their faith and belief in it in a show of incontestable advocacy, which is ultimately what matters. Krenek and Korngold to come – and it is sure to be a stimulating journey.