Recent recordings of Dvorak's F minor Trio have come in boxed sets, which not everyone may want. So this new single LP is very welcome—indeed more than welcome because so fine. In fact I can't recall a performance of the work I've enjoyed more. The music itself is of course Dvorak at his maturest and most deeply committed. There is no mistaking his life-long veneration of Brahms.
But personal grief, relieved by an equally personal kind of joie de vivre, gives the work an emotional colouring all its own.
The Chief delight of the performance, for me, is its sense of discovery. The Borodins plays as if exploring the music anew. Nothing is taken for granted. While not lacking tonal or architectural strength, the first movement is also beatifully fuild in expression; its tunes (such as the cello's lovely second subject) are allowed plenty of time to breathe. In the scherzo the players never forget the grazioso qualifying the allegretto. For the slow movement they find all the requisite intensity while also basking in its dream-like nostalgia (the dolce espressivo at letter D is particularly ravishing). The furiant-inspired finale is exuberant without being over-driven. Their little pause on the first bar's second-best accent typifies their rejection of what I'll call metronomic rhythmic rigidity throughout the whole work.
Unlike some of her sex out to assert themselves in male company, Luba Edlina is admirably attentive to every detail of keyboard balance. As for the recording, I find it as warm and truthful on cassette as on LP.'