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Mendelssohn: Piano Trios album review – celebrity soloists are a balanced delight


Two of the most celebrated trios in the repertory have power but also subtlety in Joshua Bell, Steven Isserlis and Jeremy Denk’s ego-free performances

There’s something about the combination of piano, violin and cello that seems to attract ad hoc celebrity collaborations, bringing soloists together just for the fun of playing chamber music. More recently Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos and Yo-Yo Ma have worked together in concert and in the studio, and now we have Jeremy Denk teaming up with Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis for these very convincing accounts of Mendelssohn’s two piano trios, the D minor Op 49 and C minor Op 66, not only among the composer’s finest chamber works, but two of the finest trios in the repertory. Photograph: Sony MusicWhat is clear throughout these performances is that this is real chamber music; there’s never any sense of one player trying to dominate his colleagues or to hog the limelight.

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