STANFORD, C.V.: Piano Quartet No. 2 / Piano Trio No. 1 / Legend / Irish Fantasies (Gould Piano Trio) CD reviews

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STANFORD, C.V.: Piano Quartet No. 2 / Piano Trio No. 1 / Legend / Irish Fantasies (Gould Piano Trio)

Composer(s):	Stanford, Charles Villiers
Artist(s)	Show list Gould Piano Trio, Ensemble • Frith, Benjamin, piano • Adams, David, viola • Gould, Lucy, violin
Period(s)	Romantic
Genre	Classical Music
Category	Chamber Music
Catalogue	8.572452
Label	Naxos
Quality	320kbps
Album Price	CD USD 9.99 MP3 USD 6.99

Stanford’s chamber music occupies an important position in his oeuvre. The Piano Trio No. 1 was dedicated to the great Hans von Bülow and is an impressively large-scaled and lyrical work, exuding both elegance and vigour. The Piano Quartet No. 2 was revived by the Gould Trio after long neglect in 2010. It too is an exceptional work, melodically profuse, including folkloric elements and balancing its clement and turbulent aspects with utter assurance. The violin pieces supply appealing qualities of tuneful playfulness. The Gould Trio’s recording of Stanford’s Piano Trio No. 3 [8.570416] was “welcomed with open arms” (Gramophone).

Review By Jerry Dubins ,Fanfare,January 2012

the Gould Piano Trio performs the trio as beautifully as one could ask, and joined by violist David Adams, they play the quartet with the fullness of passion it deserves. As a duo, Gould and Frith are charming in the pieces for violin and piano. For all chamber music lovers, this is strongly recommended.

To read the complete review, please visit Fanfare online.

Review By Record Geijutsu,January 2012

8.572452_The Record Geijutsu_012012_ja.pdf

Review By Christopher Howell ,MusicWeb International,December 2011

Not a cycle as such, but all of Stanford’s chamber music for more than one stringed instrument and piano has now been recorded. The première recording of the unpublished Second Piano Quartet reveals a major work and the new version of Piano Trio no.1 is at least the equal of its predecessor by the Pirasti Trio. The three beautiful pieces for violin and piano are premières too. © MusicWeb International

Review By Riccardo Risaliti,Musica,December 2011

8.572452_Musica_122011_it.pdf

Review By John France ,MusicWeb International,November 2011

The playing of all the music on this CD is simply superb. The Gould Trio, David Adams and Benjamin Frith are bold advocates for this important and interesting music. It is finely recorded. The notes by Jeremy Dibble are extremely helpful.

This is one of the best CDs of British chamber music to be released in recent years. It is essential listening for anyone who loves Stanford and/or British chamber music. How anyone could listen to this CD and still believe that Stanford’s music is ‘as dry as dust’ totally evades me. Read complete review

Review By James Inverne,Gramophone,November 2011

Charles Villiers Stanford was such a wonderful composer, it hardly needs saying here, and Naxos has done well by him. So well that I ungratefully wonder whether we might have one or two of his operas (Much Ado about Nothing, anyone?). But here is a stylish exploration that shows yet again that our concert halls should be programming more Stanford. I’d go.

Review By Andrew Achenbach ,Gramophone,November 2011

Two superior Stanford works—and another feather in this ensemble’s cap

I’m delighted to be able to report that the Gould Piano Trio are magnificently stylish and sympathetic champions, and in the Piano Quartet they are joined by the excellent David Adams on the viola. Benefiting from top-notch production values throughout, this generously filled disc should be snapped up without delay.

Review By Elaine Fine,American Record Guide,November 2011

Dublin-born Sir Charles Villiers Stanford[’s]…music on this recording makes it clear that he was one of the very finest composers of the later 19th and early 20th centuries. Stanford’s ‘Legend’ and his ‘Jig’ and ‘Hush Song’…are gorgeous and subtly Irish. Why these pieces are not part of the standard violin and piano literature is a mystery to me.

All the playing on this recording is excellent. I’m extremely grateful to these marvelous musicians for introducing me to these newlyunearthed treasures.

To read the complete review, please visit American Record Guide online.

Review By Christopher Howell,MusicWeb International,October 2011

The First Piano Trio… remained dormant until the present recording and a performance by the same forces in 2010. The manuscript has been edited by Jeremy Dibble, who also provides the authoritative notes.

…no one who buys this CD—which deserves to be a bestseller—is likely to conclude that Stanford himself had failed to deliver. Furthermore, while Stanford’s use of first-movement sonata form in his symphonies always retained a certain academic correctness—and in fact he gradually abandoned the symphony in favour of the Irish Rhapsody for his major orchestral statements—he allowed himself a more inventive approach to form in his chamber music.

Stanford seems to have been particularly impressed by Brahms’s device, in his Fourth Symphony…The first movement of the First Piano Trio is not the only occasion when Stanford adopted this technique, but manipulating it entirely for his own purposes. In effect, the movement becomes three statements—rather than a first statement, a development and a restatement. The second statement is the most varied, the third statement closer to the original one. Brahms’s symphonic growth is thereby replaced by a finely controlled rhapsody in which Stanford’s lyrical gifts flower freely.

The second movement is a charming intermezzo.

The previous recording of the First Piano Trio, coupled with the First Piano Quartet, was by the Pirasti Trio (ASV CD DCA 1056)… while the three players of the Pirasti Trio are excellent musicians, and so are the string players of the Gould Piano Trio, Benjamin Frith is something more. He is the sort of exceptionally gifted artist who gives a clear profile, a sense of character and a meaning to everything he plays. At times a theme, first heard on the strings and very nicely handled, assumes its full flowering when Frith takes it up. He is, however, too good a musician to deliberately outplay his colleagues and his presence tends to inspire rather than dwarf them. All the same, the Gould performance is a little more piano-led than the Pirasti one. Only time will tell if I find myself listening to one more than the other. For the moment I am just delighted that this major work now has two recordings fully worthy of it.

The “Legend”, to which Stanford did not even attach an opus number, shows what treasures can sometimes emerge from the more unsuspected corners of his output. Lucy Gould plays it with a sense of self-communing that is highly attractive.

The “Six Irish Fantasies” were written for Lady Hallé, who often played them. The opening page of the “Jig” sounds like a blueprint for all the folksy finales written over the next couple of generations by the likes of Holst and Moeran.

“Hush Songs”, as the Irish call their lullabies, figure largely in Stanford’s output. Such was the resourcefulness, inventiveness and technical variety…that it would be instructive rather than monotonous tomore....

Review By David Hurwitz,ClassicsToday.com,October 2011

[Stanford’s] best pieces are always those where he allows the folk influence to shine, as in the two Irish Fantasies included here…The First Piano Trio has two charming middle movements, including a curious minuet that also doubles as a sort of slow movement.

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Review By John Terauds,Toronto Star,August 2011

…thanks to dedicated enthusiasts like England’s Gould Trio…we can roll around in some of his most engaging music through gorgeous interpretations….the Goulds…elegantly serve up the four-movement… Other treats on the album are the sparkling, spacious Piano Trio No. 1 and some light stuff—a Legend and two of a set of six Irish Fantasies—that serves as the whipped cream, with cherry on top.

Review By Bob McQuiston,Classical Lost and Found,August 2011

The Gould Piano Trio continue their investigation of rarely heard chamber music by British composer Sir Charles Villiers Stanford…on this new CD from Naxos. These are all world premiere recordings except for the trio. And we have the Gould to thank for resurrecting the quartet, which was never published. Prior to their revival of it last year, it probably hadn’t been performed publicly since 1914!

The concert opens with the first piano trio of 1889, which Stanford dedicated to his good friend, the legendary pianist and conductor Hans von Bülow (1830–1894). In four immaculate movements, the influence of Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) is evident right from the start. This figures considering Sir Charles studied in Germany between 1874 and 1876 with Joseph Joachim (1831–1907), who was a close associate of Johannes, and highly revered his music.

The initial sonata form allegro is very lyrical, and opens with a couple of attractive ideas, which are subjected to an emotionally charged development. A glowing recapitulation and spirited final coda end the movement, anticipating the capricious allegretto to come. It’s a quirky scherzo-like offering reminiscent of Robert Schumann (1810–1856) in his more quixotic “Eusebius and Florestan” moments. Delicate and fleeting, it never outstays its welcome, and is the exact opposite of the graceful minuet movement that’s next.

The concluding allegro is a sonata-rondo with a pair of recurring themes that are infectiously manic and melodically subdued respectively. They are co-developed and ultimately blended together in a stunning recapitulation with a final coda that ends the trio in a blaze of light.

The six-minute Legend for violin and piano from 1894 follows. It’s based on a wintry reserved idea (WR) that may suggest Grieg’s (1843–1907) more Northern moments. There is a hint of spring when an antsy variant of WR appears briefly [track-5, beginning at 02:26], but Jack Frost ices the final pages.

Next up, the only two of Stanford’s Six Irish Fantasies for violin and piano (1894) currently on disc. “Jig” (No. 3) is a miniscule theme with variations, and “Irish as Paddy’s pig”…“Hush Song” (No. 5) is a lullaby with delicate chromatic colorations, and finds the composer at his folk-inspired best.

Now for the pièce de résistance, the second piano quartet completed in 1913. As noted above, this was never published, and appears here thanks to the editing efforts of musicologist Jeremy Dibble…

The beginning sonata form andante must rank with the composer’s most engaging movements. Its anguished introduction has seeds of two main ideas that soon blossom forth in the opening statement. The frantic first one (FF) [track-8, beginning at 00:47] is in a minor key as opposed to the radiant second (RS) [track-8, beginning at 01:37], which is in the major.more....

Review By Brian Wilson Download Roundup,MusicWeb International,August 2011

Naxos have already done well by Stanford with recordings of his symphonies...choral music and the Piano Trio No.3, etc., played by the Gould Piano Trio. (8.570416—see reviews by Michael Cookson and Christopher Howell (Bargain of the Month.)

Much as I enjoyed that earlier recording, I think the current successor is even better. If you still harboured any misconceptions about Stanford as a comfortable Victorian composer, forget them: the First Piano Trio combines as much intensity and lyricism as any of Elgar’s chamber music and the Gould

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Review By Blair Sanderson,Allmusic.com,August 2011

…the Piano Trio No. 1 in E flat major, which was recorded by the Pirasti Trio and released on ASV in 2001, the remaining works on this disc receive a thorough dusting off by the Gould Piano Trio, which consists of violinist Lucy Gould, cellist Alice Neary, and pianist Benjamin Frith, who perform in the piano trio, and are joined by violist David Adams in the Piano Quartet No. 2 in C minor. Typical of Stanford’s style are the expansive forms and long-breathed melodies of noble character, supported throughout by rhythmic gestures and energetic counterpoint, which was strongly by Johannes Brahms. The Piano Trio and the Piano Quartet exude a sweet Romanticism, and the richness of the harmonies and gracefulness of the melodies should win these pieces many more

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