Beethoven - Complete Works for Piano Trio Vol IV

The Guardian 80

Swiss Piano Trio
(Audite)

This collection of Beethoven’s works for violin, cello and piano, a five-volume series in the making since 2015, is played by the Swiss Piano Trio with real freshness and verve. Rather than record chronologically, they have preferred, wisely, to mix early and later repertoire to make good programmes. It took a moment to realise that the longest of three works here, Op 38, is familiar because it’s an original arrangement of Beethoven’s Septet Op 20, better know in that form but convincing here too. The early Op 11 in B flat major (1797) and the one-movement Allegretto in E flat, Hess 48, full of classical grace, are played with light textures and plenty of invention.