Trio 1790 * Piano Trios Vol. 5 CD

The Bohemian-born Viennese composer Leopold Koželuch published some five dozen sonatas and trios for piano, violin, and cello-a remarkable output. Inventive and skillful, he embraced the latest musical fashions without ever succumbing to the sort of triviality that caused so much music written for cultivated domestic music-making to be laid aside after a single performance. Over the past few years, Trio 1790 has selected roughly a quarter of these consistently delightful works-some dramatically charged, others enriched by folkloric elements-and recorded them for cpo with extraordinary sensitivity and refinement. Now, with this fifth volume, the series reaches it's conclusion, bringing to a close a project that was never intended as an encyclopedic survey. Each of the three carefully chosen Sonates en trio is a treasure in it's own right, together forming a sparkling musical delight that listeners are unlikely to set aside after a single hearing.