Schubert Piano [Trio] Trios—B flat, D28; B flat, D898. Notturno in E flat, D897. The Mozartean Players (Stanley Ritchie, vn; Myron Lutzke, vc; Steven Lubin, fp).

Harmonia Mundi (Full price) (CD) HMU90 7094 (60 minutes: DDD).

Concerning his conversion to the performance of Schubert on period instruments, Steven Lubin, pianist with The Mozartean Players, writes: "I've had to acquire a taste for a finer-grained sort of Romanticism, one that is only half a step away from the 18th-century world, and derives some of its pathos from encroaching on it". As evidence of this, The Mozartean Players' version of Schubert's B flat Trio exploits the special timbral qualities of the piano's different registers and more incisive edge to the strings to produce an ensemble in which the characterization of thematic material is more distinctive and the interaction of the instruments is more equal. The modern piano's brightness and evenness across its range make it primus inter pares in the Beaux Arts Trio's highly polished reading.

In the Notturno D897, The Mozartean Players reveal the intimate relationship between instrumental specifications and tempo in a performance which is full of passionate intensity. By contrast, the Beaux Arts luxuriate in the greater sustaining capabilities of their modern instruments.

As in the disc here under review, the Castle Trio's Lambert Orkis uses a Regier copy of an 1824 Graf piano for his recording of the Sonatensatz D28. Both performances capture the work's youthful exuberance, but the brightly lit recorded sound and fractionally faster tempo give The Mozartean Players' version a somewhat breathless quality, while Orkis and his group play with more attack and sound more robust.

NAR