Martinů wrote no less than ten scores for trio with keyboard, including four in the classic formation of piano, violin and cello, spread out between 1930 and 1951. The Cinq pièces brèves resuscitate a polymelodicism worthy of a Renaissance instrumental madrigal, whereas the charming Bergerettes make up a modest pastorale of French and Czech origin in the spirit of the cantata Kytice. The Trio No. 2 pays homage to Fauré, whereas the last Trio No. 3 prefigures the expressive power of the Fantaisies symphoniques (Symphony No. 6), sketched out beginning in May 1951 in New York. The Kinsky Trio is the heir to the famed Czech chamber groups, from the Suk Trio, Vlach Quartet and ensembles still active, such as the Guarneri Trio Prague, Kocian, Pražák and Zemlinsky quartets… international representatives of the present-day Central European school.

PRD/DSD 250 256

BEETHOVEN STRING TRIO (Op.10)

Pavel HŮLA, violin/Violine/violon, Josef KLUSOŇ, viola/Bratsche/alto Michal KAŇKA, cello/Violoncello/violoncelle

KOCIAN QUARTET (Op.15)

Pavel HŮLA, Miloš ČERNÝ, violins/Violinen/violons, Zbyněk PAĎOUREK, viola/Bratsche/alto Václav BERNÁŠEK, cello/Violoncello/violoncelle

Brought together for the first time, this anthology of chamber music works ranges from the last flickers of neo-Germanic Romanticism to the nationalism of the early 20th century. Written by great Hungarian musician

PRD/DSD 250 237

PRD/DSD 250 168

Praga DaCamera PRD 350 033

(prev. PRD 250 155)

PRAGA DaCamera

PRD 350024

This CD associates two chamber masterpieces that Mozart dedicated to Anton Stadler, his "brother" in his masonic lodge. The famous "Skittle trio" –which is said to have been written within no more than the time of a skittle game- is a divertimento, curiously starting with a sweetly soothing andante, followed by a minuetto, modulating in G minor, and ending with a rondo, tender and poetical, highlighting the similarities in tone of the clarinet and the viola. Written three years later, the Quintet, as the forthcoming concerto K 622, exploits all the resources of the clarinet, particularly its low register, and offers, in the second larghetto one of the most beautiful nocturnal songs ever written, sublime effusion of melody played by the clarinet over strings con sordino.

PRD/DSD 250 200

PRD 250 179

A novel juxtaposition of Schubert’s last quartet, his most enigmatic and most original, with his two string trios, endeavours without successors but prefiguring the harmonic modernism of the late masterpieces. The Pražák Quartet, as in the two sister-works, ‘Rosamunde’ and ‘Death in the Maiden’ (PRD 250 091), renders the dramatic character of this trilogy that announces, without any spiritual break, both the dramatic unity and the Expressionism of the major scores of the Second Vienna School, that of Zemlinsky, Berg and Schönberg.

PRD/DSD 250 240

PRD 250 167

Erwin SCHULHOFF : 8 June 1894 (Prague) - 18 August 1942 (KZ Weissenburg, Bavaria)

In 1926, Schulhoff was at the peak of his glory, his neo-Classical writing has succeeded in blending expressiveness, a playful nature, Bohemian poetics and innovative jazz influences: a clear picture of degenerate music according Goebbels, ten years later..

PRD/DSD 250 203