Trio Zimmermann

Trio Zimmermann – J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (Arr. Trio Zimmermann for Violin, Viola & Cello) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:30 minutes | 1,33 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS

For close to 300 years Bach’s Goldberg Variations have awed performers as well as listeners, through an unparalleled combination of a dazzling variety of expression and breath-taking virtuosity with stupendous polyphonic mastery. No wonder then that other musicians than harpsichordists have wanted to make it their own – pianists, first and foremost, but also accordion players and guitarists, flautists and harpists. Having performed and recorded much of the classical as well as the modern string trio repertoire, Trio Zimmermann began working on the Goldberg Variations several years ago, playing an existing arrangement. But in their own words, the three members – among the leading string players of our time – ‘soon became captivated by the original score and its innumerable beauties and details’. As a result they have jointly prepared a performing version which here receives its first recording. Playing an important part on this album are also the Trio’s instruments – all by Antonio Stradivarius, and featured in close-up on the cover.

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Trio Zimmermann – Mozart: Divertimento in E flat major, K 563 (2010)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 59:25 minutes | 1007 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS

Classics Today 10/10: “This is a magnificent recording”; Music Web International: “Beautifully presented and recorded this impressive disc will prove a most worthwhile addition to any chamber music collection”.

‘Each instrument is primus inter pares, every note is significant …’ is how the scholar Alfred Einstein described W.A. Mozart’s Divertimento in E flat major for string trio. What other work could then be more suitable for the first disc of a star-studded ensemble such as Trio Zimmermann, in which each member is very definitely first among equals? Composed in the same year as the three final symphonies, Mozart’s only real trio for violin, viola and cello is a weighty work – six movements and close to 50 glorious minutes of music – and the fact that Mozart chose the title Divertimento (from the Italian divertire: to amuse) for a piece of these dimensions has often been remarked upon. But to Mozart, there was no real dividing line between ‘serious’ art and pleasure or amusement – and so, to quote Einstein once more, he gave us ‘the most perfect, finest thing that has ever been heard in this world’. To round off the disc, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Antoine Tamestit and Christian Poltéra have chosen to record Franz Schubert’s first contribution to the string trio genre, the opening – and only complete – movement (Allegro) of his String Trio in B flat major, D 471, written in 1816 when the composer was only nineteen.

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