Wanderer Trio - Brahms: Complete Piano Trios (2006) CD-Rip

Robust? Vigorous? Muscular? None of those adjectives even come close to describing these performances by the French Trio Wanderer of Brahms' three piano trios and G minor Piano Quartet. The opening theme of the Allegro con brio in the B flat Trio has rarely sounded so lushly sonorous. The passage work of the Scherzo in the C major Trio has not often been so incredibly relentless. The unisons at the start of the C minor Trio have never been so immensely powerful. The cadenza in the G minor Quartet's Rondo alla Zingarese has never been taken at such a breakneck tempo. For some listeners, it may ultimately prove all too exhausting. The Trio Wanderer is a first-class group with an enormous sound, tight ensemble, and virtuoso technique, but the interpretations here are so unbearably intense and overwhelmingly expressive that listeners used to the more refined sound and more reserved interpretations by, say, the Beaux Arts Trio, might find them too extravagantly Romantic. But even they will have to admit that, taken a work at a time with suitable pauses in between for rest, refreshment, and reinforcement, the Trio Wanderer's performances are quite impressive, particularly in Harmonia Mundi's big, close, and colorful sound.