The musicians here all had solid reputations. Ruth Posselt, wife of longtime concertmaster/assistant conductor of the BSO Richard Burgin, was a noted violinist and teacher, Samuel Mayes, was a fixture in the BSO cello section and Abba Bogin, a fine piano acccompanist who was preferred by Janos Starker as a partner in chamber music. The three here display virtuosity, understanding, and superb musicianship as they clearly labor in love over these masterpieces.
Of the the two trios, I have long loved Op. 1, No. 2 the most of the entire ouevre. My benchmark has been the great Schneider-Casals-Istomin issue. The music is so beautiful and Casals provides strong, individual, even forceful leadership which his "son" and "grandson" defer to with great love and respect. It is fascinating to juxtipose that recording with this one, where pianist Bogin clearly carries the day and displays such mature musical insight inspite of being under 30 at the time of these recordings.
As mentioned earlier, I've been playing with Audacity and I think the overall results here are good. My ongoing complaint with these Allegro issues is the quality of the engineering at the time of recording. These three artists deserved better however, Allegro was a true budget organization....need I say more?
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