Angell Trio

Reviews...
Der Bund review of live broadcast from Bern for Swiss Radio DRS2	“The Angell Trio’s reading of the Mendelssohn Trio in D minor perfectly combined the dawn of the Romantic era with a Classical sense of proportion. The Trio proved capable of the highest order of ensemble playing in the expression and range of this captivating performance. Their qualities became especially apparent in the seemingly innocent slow movement: behind the friendly and lyrical song these musicians succeeded in searching out deeper regions of feeling, not only cradling their audience but taking them on a twilight journey of Romantic dreams.”
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung review of concert recorded live for Hessische Rundfunk in Wiesbaden	"The Angell Trio opened this concert with Beethoven's first offering to the Vienna public, his Trio Op.1, no.1, realising its classical Appollonian character with some wonderfully elegant, flexible playing. The Trio then gave a sonorous, passionate and personal reading of Brahms' Trio Op.101 without losing any of the trademark precision and impeccable balance they had established earlier in the concert. In all their interpretations they reach the ideal balance between an analytical approach and intuitive understanding."
New York Times review of concert at Carnegie Hall	The two most striking qualities in the Angell Piano Trio's concert at Weill Recital Hall on Tuesday evening might seem to be mutually exclusive. On one hand, the ensemble's performances of works by Haydn, Brahms and James MacMillan were models of clarity, with every note beautifully polished and balances organized with clockwork precision. Yet these were hardly readings of soulless precision: the players found room within their thoughtful readings for the passion and fire that is the difference between an ad hoc trio performance and one by a group that works together regularly. The trio, in which Frances Angell is the pianist, Jan Peter Schmolck is the violinist and Richard May is the cellist, was formed in 1991 at the Britten-Pears School for Advanced Musical Studies in Aldeburgh, England. It has performed extensively in Britain and elsewhere in Europe; its Tuesday concert was its North American debut. Haydn's Trio in G was a wise choice as a concert opener because its demands -- an interlacing of courtly transparency and rustic zestiness -- immediately established the group's strengths, corporately and individually. Ms. Angell, for example, was playing a modern concert grand with its lid open, yet was able to produce a sparkling, focused sound that suggested the lightness of a late-18th-century instrument. And Mr. Schmolck and Mr. May, both in tandem and on their own, produced appealingly rounded timbres that offset the piano lines beautifully. The Brahms Trio in B (Op. 8), which closed the concerts, was necessarily weightier, but what the Angell players seemed to find most inviting about it was its lyricism and a current of playfulness that remains hidden in most performances. Aside from a remarkably nimble reading of the Scherzo, the ensemble highlighted the unlikely allusions to the Viennese ballroom in the opening Allegro con brio. Between the Haydn and the Brahms, the trio gave the American premiere of Mr. MacMillan's ''Fourteen Little Pieces'' (1997). Its title notwithstanding, this is a big work, and like most of Mr. MacMillan's scores, it is steeped in Christian symbolism, in this case, evocations of the Crucifixion, with pounding bass notes in the piano representing the hammering of the nails. Mr. MacMillan knows how to create effects and he does so stunningly here, giving the piece a tense, ominous atmosphere but also some magnificently soaring cello and violin lines. It would be hard to imagine a more powerful performance of the work












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Reviews...