Fauré; Debussy; Ravel - Piano Trios (Florestan Trio)

Information

Composer: Gabriel Fauré; Claude Debussy; Maurice Ravel

• Fauré - Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 120
• Debussy - Piano Trio in G minor, L. 5
• Ravel - Piano Trio in A minor

Florestan Trio

    Anthony Marwood, violin

    Richard Lester, cello

    Susan Tomes, piano

Date: 1999

Label: Hyperion

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Review

The Florestan Trio has the ability to adapt its style to different kinds of music without any loss of conviction. After Brahms and Schumann comes this French disc showing it equally adept at entering the 1880 salon world of Debussy's youthful Trio, Ravel's brilliant exotic idiom, and the intimate, intense thoughts of Faure's old age. These works appeared together on a fine 1989 disc by the Fontenay Trio (Teldec, 7/92 - nla). If you have this you're not likely to feel dissatisfied, but the Florestan presents a very different view of all three pieces, and in several respects I prefer it. The Florestan generally adopts faster speeds and in the quicker movements Susan Tomes's playing is remarkably light and precise. The finale of the Faure, for example, has a scherzando quality that throws into relief the seriousness of the strings' initial gesture. The string players are always ready to modify their sound to produce special expressive effects - the eerily quiet unison passage in Faure's Andante (track 2, 2'54'') or the vibrato-less duet in the Ravel Passacaille (track 10, 5'15'') - sounding wonderfully remote and antique. The Hyperion recording has greater clarity, too, allowing much more of the fantastical detail in the Ravel Pantoum to emerge.

In the Debussy, the Florestan style is lighter than the more spacious, concentrated Fontenay, stressing elegance rather than trying to search out expressive depths. The latter's playing is more straightforward than the Golub/Kaplan/Carr Trio, whose idiomatic command of rubato results in persuasively free interpretations of the Debussy and the Faure. But the Florestan's freshness, imagination and purposeful directness incline me to put them at the top of my list.

— Duncan Druce

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Gabriel Fauré (12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924) was a French composer. A student of Camille Saint-Saëns, he served as an organist before joining the Paris Conservatory in 1897 and later becoming its director in 1905. Fauré composed influential works across multiple genres, including orchestral, chamber, piano, vocal and church music. His notable compositions include the Requiem, Pavane, Pelléas et Mélisande, numerous songs and piano pieces. Renowned for his lyrical elegance and emotional subtlety, Fauré influenced later composers such as Maurice Ravel, Georges Enescu and Nadia Boulanger.

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Claude Debussy (22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer who was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His orchestral works include Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894), Nocturnes (1897–1899), Images (1905–1912), and La mer (1903–1905). His piano works include sets of 24 Préludes and 12 Études. Throughout his career Debussy also wrote mélodies based on a wide variety of poetry, including his own. His works have strongly influenced a wide range of composers including Béla Bartók, Olivier Messiaen, George Benjamin, and the jazz musician Bill Evans.

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Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy. Born to a music-loving family, Ravel attended the Paris Conservatoire. After leaving the conservatoire, he found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity and incorporating elements of modernism, baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz. Among his works to enter the repertoire are pieces for piano, chamber music, two piano concertos, ballet music, two operas and eight song cycles.

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The Florestan Trio, founded in London in 1995, was one of the world's most-recorded piano trios. Renowned for their recordings on the Hyperion label, all their albums received critical acclaim and Gramophone Award nominations. Their Schumann disc won the 1999 Gramophone Award, and their French piano trios CD became a top-seller. Spanning composers from Mozart to Saint-Saëns, their recordings set high standards in chamber music. After sixteen successful years, the trio disbanded in 2011 as members pursued separate paths. Their final performances took place at London's Wigmore Hall in January 2012.

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