"The whole of the Shostakovich Trio is a technical and emotional challenge, which the Three Peters Trio met unflinchingly."
Bristol Post
As lunchtime fare, this was pretty strong stuff. First came Beethoven's Ghost Trio, which gets lots of performances because it has a nickname, even though Beethoven wrote several others just as worthy. The nickname arises from the slow movement which has a haunted feel, with its dark cello part and ambiguous tonality.
Wonderful ensemble playing in the second work, Shostakovich's Piano Trio No.2 in E minor, an agonised, anguished work written in 1944, when a close friend of the composer's died – this is his lament, as well as one for Europe at war.
The whole work is troubling and disturbing, with its strange harmonies, and angry rhythms, and it was magnificently played, with a brooding unearthly starting pace which gets faster and more frantic.
The gaunt second movement has a bleak sadness and the other two feature the ironic use of Jewish dance themes which get faster and more desperately strident. The tune has a shocking resonance: this was the music of the death camps.
The whole work is a technical and emotional challenge, which the Trio Petrus met unflinchingly even when, thanks to the furiously percussive violin line, a string went, and Peter Fisher had to improvise his fingering.
The players proved conclusively that here is a 20th century masterpiece.
Bristol Post 2014
A chamber group of immense musical stature, Trio Petrus brings together three exceptional English chamber music players. Invited to return everywhere they play, the three Peters give world-class accounts of the Titans of the piano trio repertoire.
Peter Hewitt piano
Peter Hewitt devotes his music making to chamber music and lieder as well as being a solo artist giving an average of 60 concerts each season. He regularly performs at the major London venues including the Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, St John's Smith Square and the Barbican. Peter's current ongoing recording project of the complete piano sonatas of Beethoven has attracted great critical acclaim. International Record Review magazine commented: "This is immensely musical and convincing Beethoven playing. Hewitt's technique is flawless. Here is the finest Beethoven piano sonatas debut disc I have heard in years; it deserves a place in every CD collection." He has recorded for BBC Radio and Television, broadcast on Radio 3, Classic FM, Australian Broadcasting Company, and New Zealand Radio.
Peter Fisher violin
Peter Fisher is an international artist of remarkable versatility and insight who possesses a tone quality of great beauty and lyricism that harks back to a previous generation of European violinists. His recent success as prize winner in the Alexandre Glasunov Violin Competition in Paris confirms his place amongst the leading British violinists of his generation. Peter's appearances at the top UK concert venues have more recently included the Royal Albert Hall and Wigmore Hall. He regularly travels the globe to play for his audiences and has broadcast for all the major radio stations.
Peter Adams cello
Peter Adams' career can truly be described as meteoric. When most musicians are still at school, the sixteen year old Peter was playing in the orchestra of London Festival Ballet. By the time he was 21 he had become principal cellist of both the London String Orchestra and the London City Ballet. Perhaps even more remarkably he became in the same year Professor of viola da gamba and baroque cello at the Royal Academy of Music - the youngest ever professor in the Academy's history.
Peter appears as guest principal cellist with a variety of orchestras all over Britain and is the principal cellist of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, English String Orchestra and the Oxford Philomusica.
See less
Haydn
Gypsy Rondo Trio
(1st Movement)
Tchaikovsky
Piano Trio Op.50 (2nd Mvt)
