‘Fuchs is a splendid musician. Everything is so fine and deft, so charmingly invented that one always takes delight in it!’ Brahms’s comment is an admirable summing-up. The two piano trios flow easily and inventively in a highly agreeable manner that often draws close to Brahms himself, while possessing a lightness of touch all their own. Even Brahms was not free from a certain ponderous of texture in handling the difficult combination of piano and strings, and though his are by some way the more powerful gifts, Fuchs’s elegance is very attractive.

The B flat (Second) Trio’s Andante sostenuto is more than elegant or ‘charmingly invented’ (reizvoll erfunden): it has a grace but also a sadness that are movingly balanced and touch a deeper vein. The routine jollities of the succeeding finale are rather a let-down though, especially when Fuchs overworks his basic theme without drawing enough from it.

This Trio is perhaps the more sympathetic of the two, as Fuchs finds ways out of the Brahmsian shadows cast over the First and simplifies his idiom. The excellent Gould Trio respond sensitively to the two works’ different natures, not holding back with the big gestures of the C major First or the somewhat funereal atmosphere of the Adagio, while lightening their touch with the more direct Second. These are very attractive performances of music that well deserves a return to the repertoire.