Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
The Complete Piano Trios
Piano Trio No.1 in B flat major Op21
Piano Trio No.2 in G minor Op26
Piano Trio No.3 in F minor Op65
Piano Trio No. 4 Dumky Op90
Boris Giltburg (piano), Veronika Jarůšková (violin), Peter Jarůšek (cello) 
rec. 2022/23, Wyastone Concert Hall, Wyastone Leys, Monmouth, UK 
Reviewed as a digital download from a press preview 
Supraphon SU4319-2 [143]

To start in a playful mood, it is a mystery to me why companies before sending out a press release don’t ask an English speaker to check the English. This new 2 disc set is described as “a truly one off Dvořák festivity” in which the performers “manifest an incredible chime”. I am happy to report that, in their own garbled fashion, both statements are correct as this is an absolute treasure of an album. 

If the names of the performers, with the exception of Giltburg, seem unfamiliar, they are much better known as members of the trailblazing Pavel Haas Quartet. If I had been in charge of the marketing of this recording the name of that celebrated outfit would have been everywhere on the promotional material. In an age of hype this recording has been left to make its way on its own merits. It deserves to go far. 

Giltburg has been a regular partner of the Pavel Haas Quartet, winning a Gramophone Award for a recording of the second Dvořák Piano Quintet with them. His “chime” with them is certainly “manifest” in this outing as they seem to breathe together musically with the utmost naturalness. 

The beauty of a complete set of these trios is that it allows the first two to step out of the shadows of the third and especially the fourth, the famous Dumky. Their relative neglect seems incomprehensible in performances as good as these. The second one oozes irresistible melodies and lush Dvořákian harmonies. The composer’s grip on the dance rhythms of his native land is already well established in the scherzo third movement. It is worth pointing out that Dvořák was in his thirties when he wrote these first two trios even though he had yet to make a breakthrough to international fame. 

Neither of these first two trios can compete with the later ones in terms of form or complexity but taken on their own terms they are a non-stop delight. Unencumbered by severe formal constraints this is Dvořák letting gorgeous ideas fall out of his head onto the page. There isn’t room in this review to itemise all the inspirations that caught my ear in the first movement of the first trio alone. Of course the performances have something to do with it and these musicians appreciate that Dvořák didn’t just reserve colour for his orchestral works. Perhaps the greatest pleasure derives from the sensuous side of the writing especially when as richly recorded as here. The performances of the third and fourth trios are absolutely superb but it was the first two to which I kept coming back.

With the third trio of 1883, the spirit of Brahms is much more evident though the loveliness of the middle of the first movement’s development reminds me that this is Dvořák. Giltburg and Co don’t overdo the earnestness as if they are aware that the spirit of the composer is that of delight. In this regard, it can stand comparison with the roughly contemporary Seventh Symphony. The off kilter rhythm of the main section of the second movement Allegretto could only have come from the pen of one composer I know! What I am highly tempted to christen the Pavel Haas Triosavour every rhythmic bounce. 

There is much more to their playing than Czech charm as evidenced by the long drawn out melodies of the Poco Adagio slow movement where there is an almost symphonic sense of space and time. Poor old Dvořák seems doomed never to be taken quite as seriously as he deserves. The intensity and magic of the playing of this movement on this recording would be hard to overstate. Last word must go to the characteristic moment of nostalgic reminiscence right at the end of the finale – pure essence of Dvořák hauntingly caught. 

The final work is listed as ‘Dumky for Piano Trio’ rather than in the more usual format of ‘Piano Trio in E minor “Dumky”’. If nothing else this more precise description alerts us to the unusual features of this the most familiar work included on this recording. If the third trio presents us with Dvořák the loyal devotee of Brahms then this six movement work is quite a departure. Not that Brahms was ever as conservative as he is made out to be! 

When it comes to this unusual, episodic work, there is a lot of stiff competition. Daniel Felsenfeld has written of the need for the music “to be both brooding and yet somehow through it all, a little lighthearted”. This seems to me an excellent description of Dvořák’s music full stop and it certainly catches the quality that makes this recording such a success – and not just in this fourth trio. The best recordings of this trio capture a sense of a Dvořák relieved to have got a formal burden off his back and finally free to go where fancy took him. Yet the music is far from shapeless and the performers need to find a way to integrate its many moods into a convincingly complete work as distinct from a conveyor belt of sweet treats. In the hands of the musicians on this recording each succeeding mood emerges organically from the preceding section and flows into the next even as they savour the one at hand. Try their way with the second movement, another Poco Adagio, and what you will hear is true chamber music – spontaneous, intense, intimate. 

It goes without saying that the Czech dance rhythms are gobbled up with glee but what anchors the performance is a deep communion with the Slavic passion of the writing. It is the tension between the two that energises this account so effectively. The latter quality keeps at bay any risk of sugary sentimentality to boot. Listening to this performance is like travelling through a landscape where each turn of the road brings a new vista even more breathtaking than the last. 

There are a lot of very good recordings of this work out there from the Florestans and the Beaux Arts at one extreme and the Smetanas and even David Oistrakh with Oborin and Knushevitsky at the other and many fine ones including the late lamented Lars Vogt with the Tetzlaffs in between but none of them beat this one – for playfulness, for exuberance, for melodic grace, for imagination and just downright excitement. 

All things considered this is indeed “a truly one off Dvořák festivity”! 

David McDade

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