Apart from the Trio recorded here, Weber wrote only two pieces of concerted chamber music, the Piano Quartet and the Clarinet Quintet; and both are close in manner to the Parisian 'brilliant' style. The Trio is unique in his output in that its sensitive and inventive interplay of the three disparate instruments places it closer to Vienna than Paris. The players here respond intelligently to its demands. They can produce a light brilliance when the music needs it, as in the elegant scherzo (which for much of the time is really a concert waltz of the kind Weber managed so beautifully in the Invitation to the dance); but they also catch the pathos of the so-called Schafers Klage (or ''Shepherd's Lament''), and especially the melancholy and unrest of the beautiful opening movement.
Nicolet handles very well Weber's carefully judged contrast between the warm, appealing lower middle register and the brighter music given to the upper register; and he and Filippini make much of the different kinds of blend and contrast which the music also involves. It is a pity that the recording is not more sensitive to these differentiations and distinctions: the sound is sometimes rather thick and some detail is lost (for instance, the piano's right-hand triplet figuration near the start of the ''Shepherd's Lament'').
The flute sonatas are really violin sonatas, delightful little works which Weber wrote with reluctance and only for the money: he was extremely annoyed when they were turned down by the original publisher, Andre, as being ''too good''. The flute arrangements present problems. For one thing, there is the question of balance: it sounds here as if the flute is rather closer than the piano so as to help this. But a good deal in music composed by a master orchestrator for the exact tonal possibilities of the violin has to go, though of course it is all skilfully rethought. The saddest loss is the Adagio of the Sonata No. 2, originally a strange little piece with the violin crawling slowly about its lower register in the middle of two-part piano writing: here the piano melody goes to the flute and the piano takes over the crawling quavers. There have to be other swappings of melodic lines, usually to accommodate the flute's lack of the violin's extra downward fifth. Some movements work very nicely: an example is the cheery Rondo of No. 3. There is a bit of re-composition, as with the link into the Polacca of No. 6, but not much. The violin originals are preferable but, especially when as delightfully played as they are by Nicolet and Canino, there is plenty of reason for wanting to hear this version.'