One of Britain’s leading composers and educators of his day, Stanford considered chamber music an essential representation of ‘absolute music’. His mastery of extended instrumental forms truly comes of age in the First Piano Quartet, a work which breathes a confidence and fluency to rival Brahms. An adventurous harmonic palette distinguishes the Second Piano Trio, the Beethovenian pathos of its slow movement contrasting with the defiant turbulence of its cyclically related outer movements. The Gould Trio is ‘magnificently stylish’ (Gramophone) in their recording of Stanford’s First Piano Trio (8572452).

Our catalogue of Charles Villiers Stanford already includes four volumes of his complete symphonies, and our coverage of his excellent chamber music has already gone from strength to strength. The Gould Trio’s world première recording of his Third Piano Trio (8570416) was a Gramophone ‘Editor’s Choice’ and acclaimed as “absolutely first-class”, while the First Piano Trio and Second Piano Quartet (8572452) with David Adams was a MusicWeb International ‘Recording of the Year’, American Record Guide ‘Critic’s Choice’, and with Gramophone concluding that, with “top-notch production values throughout, this generously filled disc should be snapped up without delay.”