Mendelssohn: Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49

“This is the modern masterpiece in the trio genre, just as Beethoven's trios in B flat and D and Franz Schubert's E flat trio were in their time; an extremely fine composition which in years to come will still delight our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.” Robert Schumann

“Britain’s premier chamber ensemble” (The Times)

“…The three superb musicians on this new recording, all in their twenties, face the hefty competition easily by playing with an irresistible spontaneity. They approach these works as interior high dramas; contested between melancholy and ecstasy…they play with an unassailable precision.” Alan Kozinn, The New York Times

"Sweeping energy and well-shaped long melodic lines make both these performances gripping and rewarding. This is an impassioned, German-Romantic Mendelssohn, far closer to Schumann or Stainer. Each work is approached very much as a whole, so that even the quasi-orchestral chorale-writing in the finale of the C minor Trio comes across convincingly, both as a sound in itself and as the apotheosis of a compelling symphonic argument." - Stephen Johnson, BBC Music Magazine, March 2002

“Mendelssohn's two piano trios have been well served on CD, and these new versions can hold their own with some of the best. …the playing conveys all the ardour and passion of Mendelssohn's writing.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2007 ****

‘The Florestan play this with a mingled fire and lyrical tenderness that I have never heard bettered’ (Gramophone)