A more apposite coupling might have been two Russian “in memoriam” piano trios (Tchaikovsky’s written in memory of Nikolai Rubinstein, and Rachmaninov’s D minor prompted by the death of Tchaikovsky). In fact, Rachmaninov’s earlier one-movement Trio élégiaque, to which no particular death is linked, works very well musically as a preface to the Tchaikovsky. Its generally sombre character gives way to some impassioned passages before subsiding into nothingness with the same desolate theme with which the work opens. The Gould Trio rise to the challenge magnificently, with a particularly robust contribution from Benjamin Frith, best known for his superb recordings of Mendelssohn and Field.

The more extrovert Tchaikovsky, with all its bombastic and rhetorical episodes, is also very well handled, especially the central variations, purportedly depicting incidents in Rubinstein’s life and the times that he and Tchaikovsky spent together, though I wonder if the finale, while certainly allegro risoluto, is really played con fuoco. The performance by the Trio Talweg, though hard to come by, injects an extra level of adrenalin into proceedings to good effect. It also highlights a drawback of the Gould recording. The Talweg’s piano is more integrated with the two string instruments: Frith’s sumptuously toned instrument, matching the sonority of Alice Neary’s cello more closely than Lucy Gould’s sometimes reedy violin, is backwardly placed and set apart from the others. By a narrow margin, the Kempf Trio remains top choice for these same two trios.