Milhaud/Martinů - Complete String Trios

The Guardian 80

Jacques Thibaud String Trio
(Audite)

“Chamber music is a genre with which one can express one’s deepest feelings,” said Darius Milhaud; just listen to the tough, halting chorales of the Modéré from his 1947 String Trio to hear what he means. There are good reasons to pair the music of the Provençal Milhaud and his Moravian-Bohemian contemporary Bohuslav Martinů. Both gravitated to jazz-crazed Paris after the first world war, but neither forgot the special rhythms and songfulness of folk music from home. They headed for the USA in the 1940s (Milhaud as a Jew, Martinů as an exiled Czech) and wrote for small ensembles with nimble intimacy. This recording from the Jacques Thibaud String Trio gives everything an essential quality. It’s a sound perfect for French music, stripped back and quicksilver, but I also love their fearless way with Martinů’s jagged edges.