Schumann: Piano Trios – review

Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes's chamber-music partnership with violinist Christian Tetzlaff and his cello-playing sister Tanja is a regular one, and as you would expect from such fine musicians, they make a formidably competent trio. Their playing of all the works here is technically beyond criticism, and there is plenty to admire, whether it's Andsnes's crystalline delicacy in the slow movements or the way in which the two string players can reduce their tone to the merest whisper for dramatic effect. What isn't conveyed, though, is any sense of involvement or affection for the music, and Schumann is really not a composer to be played in a detached, antiseptic way, without wit or warmth. As well as the three numbered trios and the delightful set of Fantasiestücke Op 88, which was Schumann's first attempt at composing a piano trio, the Tetzlaffs and Andsnes include an arrangement by Theodor Kirchner of the Six Studies in Canonic Form Op 56 that Schumann originally composed for pedal piano, though to my ears it still sounds more convincing in Debussy's version for two pianos.