MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


Buy through MusicWeb for £10.50 postage paid.

Musicweb Purchase button

 

Donald Francis TOVEY (1875-1940)
Chamber Music - Volume 1
Piano Trio in B minor op.1 (1900) [37:40]
Piano Trio in C minor op.8 Style Tragique (1908) [27:26]
London Piano Trio
rec. 27-29 August 2007, Potton Hall Studio, Westleton, Suffolk. DDD
first recordings
TOCCATA TOCC 0068 [65:06]

Experience Classicsonline

There will be many for whom the chance of actually hearing any of Tovey’s music was restricted to acquiring a cassette copy of the Casals-Boult broadcast of the Cello Concerto. In recent years however, spearheaded by Toccata, we have been exposed to a far wider range of his music. Only weeks ago I reviewed a performance of the two-cello sonata that Tovey wrote for Casals and Suggia.

And so we now have the first volume in a Chamber Music edition, and this gives us the Opp. 1 and 8 Piano Trios. Both, despite the ministrations of the back of the jewel box (but not the booklet), date from 1895. The Op.1 Trio is a big, four movement work. The first thing that strikes one is the cogency of the musical argument. The twenty-year-old Tovey fashions a tightly bound structure and allows it full developmental possibilities. There are numerous opportunities for dialogue and unison between the two string instruments – there’s an especially felicitous example in a cantilena passage in the opening Maestoso. There’s a Trio of real charm in the Minuet – fully contrastive with the surrounding material – and a long breathed Rhapsodia as a third movement. There’s also some fugal development from around 3:30. Tovey’s Brahmsian inheritance is clear in this work, though the lovely second theme in the finale is all his own and he has the courage to end the trio quietly and reflectively.

The companion work is much smaller in scale – three movements only - and was originally written for clarinet, horn and piano. Once again the ideas are strong and the working out of them accomplished, with Tovey ensuring a constant supply of thematic material. The opening movement is stormy whilst the central one is an extensive Largo. Here is where the work’s subtitle, Style tragique, is best played out. It certainly sports a central panel of powerful drama. This second trio is a more overtly compact and emotionally expressive work, more obvious in its gestures perhaps, but no less powerful.

The performances by the London Piano Trio are thoroughly convincing in every way and the recording in Potton Hall is pretty good, though not perhaps quite as well balanced as some other performances from the same venue that I’ve heard. In any case, this is self-recommending for the new generation of Tovey admirers.

Jonathan Woolf

see also review by Rob Barnett

TOVEY REVIEWS ON MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Cello Concerto Toccata

Symphony Toccata I

Symphony Toccata 2

Piano Concerto Hyperion 1

Piano Concerto Hyperion 2

Chamber Music - Volume 1

Clarinet Sonata BML

Symphony – Boult – 1937 – Symposium 1352: not reviewed as yet

Cello Concerto – Casals 1930s - Symposium 1259: not reviewed as yet



 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.