Gould Piano
Trio
Lucy Gould - violin; Alice Neary - cello;
Benjamin Frith - piano
Wednesday 20 April 2011
Programme
Piano Trio in E major XV 28 Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Piano Trio in A minor Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Piano Trio no. 2 in E flat major Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828)
From their early success at the Charles Hennen and the Inaugural Melbourne Competitions through being selected as British “Rising Stars” in 1998, the Gould Piano Trio has emerged as one of the finest chamber ensembles, boasting an impressive discography, with festival appearances at Edinburgh, Cheltenham, City of London, Bath, Aldeburgh, Spoleto and the BBC Proms.
In their regular and extensive tours to the U.S.A. they have covered the major venues in New York including the Lincoln Centre, Frick Collection and Weill Hall. In Europe, highlights have included the Queens Hall - Edinburgh, Concertgebouw – Amsterdam and the Palais des Beaux Arts - Brussels, as well as recitals in Paris, Cologne, Athens and Vienna.
But whether at home or in the Far East and New Zealand, the trio have constantly striven to engage new audiences through outreach programmes, often working with school children - as filmed by the BBC during the 2006 Leeds International Piano Competition. A recent tour of North America’s West Coast saw them giving a presentation of James MacMillan’s trio, Fourteen Little Pictures, to students in the University of Southern Oregon; a piece they have championed since performing it at the BBC Symphony’s MacMillan Festival at the Barbican.
Indeed, while playing most of the established master-works of the trio repertoire – their discography includes the complete trios of both Mendelssohn and Brahms – they have an artistic ambition to extend boundaries, challenging audiences (and themselves!) with contemporary works and commissioning such trios as Chapman’s Pool by Judith Bingham. The 2007-8 season sees a new commission to celebrate the tenth annual Corbridge Chamber Music Festival, which the trio established with clarinettist Robert Plane, in Northumberland; a Clarinet Quartet (Clarinet and Piano Trio) by Benjamin Wallfisch. The connection with Robert Plane has borne fruit in the trio’s Naxos project of recent years to record the late English Romantics, combining the Piano Trios of Stanford and Bax with their clarinet chamber music, short-listed for a Gramophone award. The idea will be furthered by the inclusion of the complete Piano Trios of John Ireland.
The Trio’s special affinity with the romantic composers is enhanced by the discovery of their lesser-known contemporaries such as Niels Gade (BBC Radio 3 from Glasgow) and Robert Fuchs (“Editor’s Choice” in Gramophone -Quartz label), viewing the more popular repertoire of composers such as Schumann and Dvorak in a new perspective.
The Gould’s residency at the RNCM in Manchester gives them the opportunity to build relationships with young ensembles, introducing them to a wider repertoire, probing deeper into the meaning of the scores and giving regular performances in the city’s busy concert schedule.
2008-9 will see two appearances at London’s Wigmore Hall celebrating the bi-centenary of Mendelssohn’s birth with his two trios and special concerts to mark the birth of Messiaen 100 years ago, performing his visionary Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps, their latest recording with Robert Plane on Chandos.