WPR Music new album of the week: ‘Beethoven for Three Vol. 4’

In 2022, pianist Emanuel Ax, violinist Leonidas Kavakos and cellist Yo-Yo Ma came together to start recording Ludwig van Beethoven’s complete music for piano trio. This year, they’re up to their fourth release in their Grammy-nominated Beethoven for Three series, which includes a great piece for spooky season.

Although its outer movements are suitably turbulent, Beethoven’s “Ghost” Trio, Op. 70, No. 1, got its nickname from the second movement. According to his student Carl Czerny, that movement features a spectral theme Beethoven had originally intended for an opera based on Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” that he subsequently abandoned.

Also on this new album is Beethoven’s Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 11, which the composer originally wrote to feature the clarinet. This has come to be called the “Gassenhauer” Trio because of its finale, a set of variations on an opera aria by Beethoven’s contemporary Joseph Weigl that was a favorite of Viennese buskers at the time. It’s a tune that “swept the streets” — or the Gassen in this case.

But the Beethoven for Three project has always been about more than just piano trios. The albums also include unique versions of Beethoven’s monumental symphonies in chamber-sized arrangements. Rounding out Vol. 4 is a unique take on Beethoven’s First Symphony, arranged for violin, cello and piano by Israeli-American pianist Shai Wosner. 

The whole album displays the level of virtuosic playing you would expect from three of the most famous instrumentalists in the classical music world. More than that, though, the performances also show a subtle introspection that only years of experience with this repertoire can provide. “Beethoven for Three Vol. 4” is out now on the Sony Classical label.