Mendelssohn Piano Trio - R Strauss: Piano Trios & Piano Quartet (2005)

If you didn't know who composed the music on this disc, you'd never guess who composed the music on this disc. In tone, it's sincere yet shallow. In technique, it's fluent yet facile. In style, it sounds post-Schubert but pre-Brahms German Romantic. It's initially appealing but finally forgettable. In sum, it's the two piano trios and one piano quartet composed by Richard Strauss when he was 13, 14, and 20 years old. Because of the undeniable greatness of his later music, the industry has periodically released recordings of Strauss' youthful indiscretions in performances that range from the more than competent and enthusiastic to the less than competent and enthusiastic. This 2004 recording of Strauss' effusions by the Mendelssohn Piano Trio is thankfully on the more competent and enthusiastic side of the scale, with ardent dedication coupled with powerful interpretations that almost but not quite compensate for the brilliant emptiness of the music. One would love to hear the players in more substantial repertoire like Mozart, Brahms, and, of course, Mendelssohn. One would also love to hear them in more transparent recordings -- the sound here is close, harsh, and constricted.