In recording Dvořák’s first two piano trios the bond of sympathy between the artists becomes evident as they communicate both their passion for this repertoire and their pleasure in making music together.

The Trio in B flat major – the first that has survived – was composed in the spring of 1875, during a period when Dvořák was conceiving and consolidating a more conventional sense of musical form and style. The works of this remarkably prolific year show a distinct crystallisation of Dvořák’s mature melodic style.

When the composer began work on his Trio in G minor, in January 1876, he was exhausted after the completion of his opera Vanda, and overcome with grief for the death of his daughter Josefa. He would certainly have known how, back in 1855, his elder colleague Smetana had turned to the genre of the piano trio in similar circumstances, to express his sorrow at the death of his own daughter. This recording completes this four-part edition of Dvořák’s piano trios, quartets and quintets.