Bedrich Smetana & Franz Schubert: Piano Trios – Trio Bohémo

Trio Bohémo: Jan Vojtek – Piano, Matouš Peruška – Violin, Kristina Vocetková – Cello

“I am the instrument of a higher power. With God’s help and grace, I shall one day be a Liszt in technique and a Mozart as a composer.” The ambitious plan in the 18-year-old composer’s diary was eventually fulfilled.He was a very sought-after pianist. As a composer, he left his mark most clearly in the cycle of symphonic poems titled Ma vlast (My Country) and through chamber music in his Piano Trio and the String Quartet “From My Life”; those three works reflect tragic episodes in Smetana’s life. The Trio in G minor, one of the gems of 19th-century chamber music, was written in under three months of 1855 as an outgrowth of the composer’s immense sorrow over the death of his daughter. Smetana’s emotionally gripping trio is heard on the album together with one of the most important chamber works of the romantic era, Schubert’s monumental Piano Trio in E flat major (1827). This masterpiece was likewise written by a 30- year-old composer, but it is also one of Schubert’s last completed works; at the time, Schubert had only a year of life remaining. The ensemble reaching the depths of the two composers’ music on their debut album is the youthful Trio Bohemo, who have been appearing for several years with great success at prestigious competitions and on concert stages around the world (London’s Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein), usually with programmes combining Czech and foreign repertoire. There is yet another important name behind the recording: the late Hatto Beyerle, a founding member of the Alban Berg Quartet, who coached the young ensemble in both works and set them on the path towards their own individual interpretation, seeking the meaning hidden behind the musical notation.

Reviews

Presto Music 23rd August 2024

“At full tilt, these musicians generate the same sort of gutsy firepower that we’ve come to expect from their compatriots in the Pavel Haas Quartet, but the fine-boned quality of their pianissimo playing is equally impressive (and beautifully captured by the sound-engineers at Snape Maltings)…All in all, it’s a supremely assured debut recording, full of sensitivity and subtlety. – Katherine Cooper

The Guardian

“This is the Trio Bohémo’s first CD, and it’s an immensely promising debut. Schubert’s great E flat Piano Trio D929 and Smetana’s Trio in G minor Op 15 do not make the most obvious pairing: composed 28 years apart, they belong to utterly different musical worlds. But the freshness and energy of the Bohémo’s playing quickly erases any suggestion of a mismatch. – 4/5