This resolutely elegiac disc offers an opportunity to discover, through their chamber music, the dark side of two composers who are not often associated. Smetana’s primary purpose was to give utterance to a cry of pain at his daughter’s death through the appropriate medium of the piano trio. In the Liszt pieces, elegies and funeral gondolas remind us of the deeply human and tormented nature of a composer haunted by death and who, more than any other, was capable of expressing its icy smile. The Trio Wanderer realise all this in deeply moving performances.

Since 1999, the Trio Wanderer has released a series of recordings that have received a warm welcome from the press, winning a best of the year award from Le Monde de la Musique for its CD of Haydn trios, and numerous international awards for Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet and the trios of Shostakovich and Saint-Saëns. Its recording of the Brahms piano trios was honoured by a Diapason d’Or of the year 2006 and the Midem Classical Award in the chamber music category in January 2007. In 2009, the Trio Wanderer was voted ‘Best chamber music ensemble’ at the Victoires de la Musique for the third time.

Jean-Marc Phillips plays a violin by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini (1738). Raphaël Pidoux plays a cello by Gioffredo Cappa (1680).