Recording of the Week, Smetana and Schubert from Trio Bohémo

The bicentenary of Smetana’s birth has yielded a handful of fine new recordings of his music as well as several welcome reissues: Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic brought us a terrific Má Vlast in March, and Supraphon’s recent set of the complete operas (in recordings made between 1960 and 1983, many of which have been unavailable for some years) has proved a real treasure-trove for anyone looking to explore this side of the composer’s output beyond The Bartered Bride. (More on this one from our guest-contributor Rob Cowan next week…)

Today brings another characterful contribution to the anniversary from Trio Bohémo, a young Czech ensemble making its debut on Supraphon with Smetana’s sole piano trio, coupled with Schubert’s mighty Piano Trio No. 2 in E flat from thirty years earlier. Formed in 2019, the trio has already picked up a slew of chamber music awards around Europe, and on the evidence here it’s easy to see why. There’s a palpable synergy and conviviality to their playing which leaps out of the speakers and put me very much in mind of the qualities which made Boris Giltburg, Veronika Jarůšková and Peter Jarůšek’s set of the Dvořák piano trios  (also released on Supraphon, around this time last year) so special.

Composed just after the death of his four-year-old daughter Bedřiška in 1855, the Smetana trio opens with a keening lament initiated by violinist Matouš Peruška, who brings a wonderfully improvisatory quality to the music’s jagged lines and has a welcome edge to his sound (particularly in the lower register) which is picked up by cellist Kristina Vocetková and sustained throughout the entire movement.

At full tilt, these musicians generate the same sort of gutsy firepower that we’ve come to expect from the Pavel Haas Quartet, but the fine-boned quality of their pianissimo playing is equally impressive (and beautifully captured by the sound-engineers at Snape Maltings, where the recording was made in February). This is an ensemble which really can go from 0-60 in a couple of seconds, as they’re required to do many times in this opening movement - every dynamic shift is managed in perfect synchronicity, with no sense of bumps in the road or moments of rocky balance.

Smetana himself was a very fine pianist, and Jan Vojtek takes the most virtuosic passages (small wonder that Liszt was an early admirer of this work) entirely in his stride, never overwhelming his colleagues or smudging the tiniest details – in the Presto finale especially, the clarity and grace of his passagework is quite breathtaking, and I’d love to hear him in solo repertoire in the fullness of time.

If the performance of the Smetana is appropriately red in tooth and claw, the Schubert summons collective playing of the utmost poise and elegance from the outset. There’s a lovely buoyancy and elasticity to their phrasing in the opening stretches of the first movement, as well as an easy conversational quality which again made me think of that Dvořák recording from Giltburg et al – and as in the Smetana, the most delicate of pianissimi are gorgeously captured by players and engineers alike. The work is thought to have received its first performance among friends, at the final Schubertiade of the composer’s short life, and there’s certainly an easy intimacy to this account which speaks of the salon rather than concert-hall.

Vocetková makes much of the haunting Swedish folksong which opens the second movement, and her colleagues take their cue from her eloquent introduction by keeping their powder dry for long stretches, never pulling the music around too much or sentimentalising the material. She and Peruška explore all manner of light and shade, draining the colour and warmth from the sound here and there in response to the harmonic language whilst always allowing the melodic lines to truly sing.

The scherzo is a feather-light delight (with a slightly earthier quality coming out to play in the trio section), and the Presto finale allows Votjek ample opportunity to sparkle, especially in the closing pages. All in all, it’s a supremely assured debut recording, full of sensitivity and subtlety, and I can’t wait to see what these three eloquent young musicians might explore together next.