La mer: French Piano Trios

Rather than present the more famous examples by Ravel and Debussy, this superb album showcases piano trios by Saint-Saëns and Mel Bonis, alongside Sally Beamish’s arrangement for piano trio of Debussy’s symphonic suite La mer (The Sea). The Neave Trio perform all three works with considerable skill and conviction. Saint-Saëns procrastinated on his Piano Trio for some four years before he buckled down to it in 1891, completing the mammoth five-movement work just under a year later. Typically for Saint-Saëns, the work successfully balances large-scale serious-mindedness with more fleeting moments of Gallic playfulness. Soir et Matin (Evening and Morning) by Mélanie Hélène Bonis (otherwise known as Mel Bonis) is a short but utterly radiant two-movement trio, full of melodic flair, that stylistically bridges Franck and Fauré with impressionistic washes in the second movement. Finally, Sally Beamish strips the vast orchestral canvas of Debussy’s ocean-going La mer to its essentials, while losing none of its poetical drama.