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The Other Lalo

Thomas Goldthwaite | Pago Pago American Samoa | 05/20/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Edouardo Lalo (1823-1892)survives today with his popular Symphony Espagnol and a Cello Concerto, but discovering these trios ought to delight every chamber music enthusiast and players will want to buy the score.
The three trios on this Meridian CD label feature a lively, passionate performance by pianist Raphael Sommer, French violinist Elizabeth Balmas and Israeli cellist Daniel Adni. And it is French music that demands a great deal of surging passion, though seldom stormy. An elegant bridge in the repertoire between the familiar Mendlessohn Trio, which they resemble in wonderful lyricsm, and the more rigorous, Germanic Brahms, they have a high musical stature. If Francophiles ever longed for chamber music by opera composers Massenet and Gounod, this is it..and without too many melodramatic diminished sevenths! Trios
Nos. 1 and 2 show a developing genius crowned by a worthy Trio in A Minor , No.3, that is so pleasurable to listen to a Romantic-minded fan might concede that no one could do it better (though Zemlinsky's and Korngold's trios were only a decade away).That said, familiarity with Lalo's Trios, like so much of the Second Empire stuff, don't make a terribly deep imprint, so it's always entertaining to hear them, like grandpapa's impassioned reciting of "The boy stood on the burning deck...""