Pianotrio, Pianokwartet (2008)

Het Altenberg Trio speelt het Pianotrio "Episodi e Canto perpetuo" op 5-11-2008 in het Muziekcentrum, Enschede. "At the climaxes of both these chamber works by Latvian composer Péteris Vasks are love songs. The eight-movement piano trio from 1985 reaches its peak with the achingly beautiful Canto perpetuo while the six-movement Quartet achieves its apogee in the searingly effective Canto principale. Vasks harmonic language is fundamentally tonal, though with some fairly fearsome dissonances, and his sensibility is resolutely post-modernist, though shot through with a neo-romantic expressivity. The Trio Parnassus performs the works with insight and strength, the trio gets it all to make musical and dramatic sense. Recorded in transparent yet palpable digital sound by Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm, this disc deserves to be heard by fans of the composer and by listeners who like contemporary music of the not especially fearsome variety." (James Leonard, allmusic)