In Stefan Mendl the Vienna Piano Trio has an exceptionally brilliant pianist. But despite his delectably light and frothy, well-ventilated fingerwork, ought the spotlight to be quite so much on the keyboard in the first of these two works, in D minor? The composer himself, as an effortless prestidigitator, is of course much to blame in giving it so unrelentingly breathless a stream of notes. The violinist, Wolfgang Redik, just about manages to hold his own. But I thought the cellist, Marcus Trefny, too backwardly balanced as well as a little too musically shy in singing out those comforting cantabile tunes that Mendelssohn probably conceived in the first place for Paul, his cello-playing brother.
In the intervening six years before the C minor Trio, Mendelssohn learnt a lot – no doubt never forgetting his friend Hiller’s comment that some of the patterned, arpeggio-type figuration in the earlier work was “old-fashioned”. You need only compare the elfin scherzos of both to appreciate the infinitely subtler scoring of the latter. Subject-matter is likewise more affirmatively contrasted throughout, notably in the chorale-inspired triumphs of the finale. Again, more forwardly projected, richer cello song would have helped. But general balance in Nimbus’s resonant concert-hall is better here than in the D minor. And the enthusiastic freshness and vitality of this young team is a constant stimulus (note their daringly fast tempo risked in both scherzos). In sum, infinitely more to enjoy than to question to justify full price.'