Readers who care to look up reviews of the comparative versions listed will find a general tone of muted enthusiasm tempered by reservations about performances, recordings and the works themselves. Before echoing a few of these and adding some more arising from the new Chandos record, it would be as well to stress that these are extraordinarily difficult pieces to bring off, in concert or on record. An enormous amount of skill, especially from the pianists, has gone into the performances, whatever their weaknesses, and to eliminate all sensation of facile note-spinning, bland sentimentality and fustian rhetoric would be a daunting task indeed.
Not an impossible one, though, and there are moments of special illumination on all these records which show what might have been. Generally the scherzo movements come off well, the Beaux Arts on Philips being quite outstanding. Again, it is Pressler in the Beaux Arts who comes closest to the elusive character of the Andante con moto tranquillo slow movement of the D minor Trio, where Previn (HMV) sounds complacent and Edlina (Chandos) sentimental. Amoyal (Erato) relishes the moment in the slow movement of the C minor where the violin is left soaring alone after the final climax.
Chung finds the most touching inflections in the D minor (where the Beaux Arts violinist is particularly uninspiring).
There are good things too on the Borodin Trio's record. They seem to have a special affection for the C minor Trio, displaying a strong dramatic sense and some well-judged, even when quite pronounced, rubato. However, after a while it becomes clear that there are question marks over the pianist's articulation and the violinist's intonation which do not arise in the other versions. The E flat theme in the finale of Op. 66 has the guts ripped out of it by over-fussy pointing and the would-be triumphant chorale is too uniform to give the required sense of elation. Even in the more successful passages there is a heaviness in their expression which the music can barely take.
Recorded balance on Chandos is the best of those listed, although the violin sounds constricted and a degree of clarity is sacrificed in the resonant acoustic. HMV distance the piano unduly, denaturing the tone; even Previn's big moment in the first movement of Op. 49 is neutralized by the scrubbing in the strings. The ''airing-cupboard acoustic'' (JOC's happy description) provided by Philips is hardly preferable, and Queffelec on Erato sounds far tinnier than I know her to be in concert.
Goodness knows how to make a choice from all this. I suppose I would go for the Erato record, for the not very good reason that it is generally the least objectionable.'