Though the catalogue abounds in fine performances of both these works, this is the only currently available coupling of the two—a coupling of opposites in every way except that both have always held a place amongst the 'top of the pops' in the piano-trio repertory. The London Mozart Trio play both with true understanding of the nature of each. I'm only sorry the bright, clear recording itself is marred by the hard edge to the tone of what sounds like a too forwardly reproduced piano.
One glance at the score ''and the troubles of our human existence disappear and all the world is fresh and bright again'', so the insert-note writer tells us was Schumann's comment on Schubert's B flat Trio. It's this spirit that the players seem particularly anxious to convey throughout. You sense it from the very first bars of the opening Allegro moderato, where it's as if you're invited to join the composer on one of his youthful walking tours through the Austrian countryside in the sunshine of spring. They are quick to ease the brief heightening of tension in the middle of their simply flowing Andante, and for the scherzo they choose an amiable, unhurried tempo. The finale sounds not a note too long thanks to their predominately light, tripping step.
Once or twice in the high, semiquaver figuration in Schubert's first movement, as again at the start of the slow movement's reprise, I wondered if the violin's pianissimo was a little too frail for ideal balance. Certainly in Dvorak's Dumky Trio, where I could compare these players with a recent recording from Canada's Rembrandt Trio, I thought there were more subtleties of balance and blend (as well as softer-grained reproduction) on that Dorian disc. But I enjoyed the English team's open-hearted relish of each movement's unpredictable alternations of mood no less than their awareness of the very different character of each of the six pieces though basically all the same—that's to say 'dumky' one and all.'