Like their earlier issues of Beethoven, Shostakovich and Ravel, this new disc from the Trio Zingara is immensely enjoyable—and first and foremost for these players' wholly natural-sounding musicianship. Audible breathing from time to time betrays the extent of their involvement, yet never is there any self-conscious point-making. Always I had the impression that the composer was being allowed to tell his own tale. The recording itself was made in the mellow acoustic of The Maltings at Snape, and can perhaps best be placed as midway between the more fruity Chandos reproduction of the Borodin Trio (in their coupling of the two big Schubert trios) and the brighter, crisper Philips sound of the Beaux Arts' two-disc set of both trios plus the shorter Notturno and Sonata in one movement.
Unlike the Beaux Arts, the newcomers repeat the exposition of the B flat Trio's opening Allegro moderato, and play it with a sense of recharged vitality that never allows a bar of it to sound like mere repetition. Perhaps the slightly more flowing tempo chosen by the Beaux Arts for the second movement comes nearer to the un poco mosso with which Schubert qualifies his Andante. In the scherzo I preferred the Zingara's livelier tempo, though just once or twice I found myself wishing for sharper accentuation to give things a little more tingle.
As for the two shorter works, here again I felt the Beaux Arts' marginally faster flow a distinct advantage in the Notturno (Schubert's marking is Adagio qualified by an alla breve time signature), but that the Trio Zingara are the winners in keeping the very youthful single movement Sonata in B flat on the move. As I've already remarked, The Maltings acoustic is more resonant than the Swiss venue chosen by the Beaux Arts, so that texture on the Collins disc is not as transparently crystalline—listen, for instance, to the keyboard triplets in the bold central E major section of the Notturno. But the warmth of the sound is as assuaging as that of the playing itself. Can we now look forward to Schubert's E flat Trio from this eminently trustworthy team?'