Joseph Marx was one of the leading Austrian composers of the twentieth century, yet fifty years after his death his name is practically unknown in the concert world, which means that this new CD by the Trio Alba comes at just the right time.

The performance of the broadly dimensioned Trio Fantasy and the Ballad for Piano Quartet by these young musicians dazzlingly rehabilitates this independent-minded composer who absolutely insisted on adhering to tonality but nevertheless – or perhaps precisely for this reason – developed his own unique tonal idiom.

Schooled on Debussy, Scriabin and Reger, Joseph Marx created a highly expressive and tonally extremely complex sound world, surging upward in undulating processes. His chamber compositions representing the highest formal level demonstrate that he was an absolute master of the compositional craft.

Marx enjoyed uncommonly great esteem as a teacher. Apart from Nadia Boulanger in Paris, no composer gathered so many pupils around him.

The three musicians of the Trio Alba met at the Graz University of Music.