Founded in 2010, the top-ranking Trio Gaspard is widely praised for its unique and fresh approach to the score. Its members, who hail from Germany, Greece and the UK, are successful soloists and continue to pursue their solo careers, giving recitals and performing concertos. They have performed in major UK and European venues including the Wigmore Hall, Berlin Philharmonie, Essen Philharmonie, and the Albert Hall for the BBC Proms.

The Trio has won first prizes and special prizes at the International Joseph Joachim Chamber Music Competition in Weimar, the 5th International Haydn Chamber Music Competition in Vienna and the 17th International Chamber Music Competition in Illzach, France. Their recordings of Haydn’s trios for Chandos have received widespread critical acclaim; The Strad magazine praised Volume 1, writing ‘It’s truly a delight, and leaves this listener hungry for more’, while Gramophone remarked on their ‘high levels of virtuosity and performative imagination’.

As well as exploring and championing the traditional piano trio repertoire, Trio Gaspard works regularly with contemporary composers. They have commissioned companion pieces to the Haydn trios one of which, by Finnish composer Olli Mustonen, opens our programme. Mustonen writes about his piece ‘that it pays homage to the astonishing and mysterious modulation chains in Haydn’s music, as well as to his boyish and endearing humour, which is so full of sunshine’.

Following Haydn’s own delightful trio, which weaves gypsy dance tunes into the classical sonata form, Trio Gaspard will perform a new piece commissioned from the Moldovan composer and violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja. The Carnival atmosphere of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody follows in which Liszt also sought to capture what he believed were authentic folk melodies often improvised by gypsy ensembles.

The concert will conclude with Schubert’s majestic first piano trio, described by Schumann as ‘lyrical, sensuous, bright and nuanced’. This promises to be an exhilarating afternoon of the finest chamber music.

Jonian Ilias Kadesha (violin), Vashti Hunter (cello), Nicholas Rimmer (piano)

Photo credit © 2024 : Andrej Grilc