Christian Palmer: Piano Trios

Despite his deep involvement in the Lutheran church and his more extensive writing of liturgical music, this album focuses on the secular piano trios of Christian Palmer. Most of his piano trio output was written for family music-making, himself on the cello and his sons playing violin and piano. While a family that could play such works is clearly rather gifted, the compositions are, on the whole, nothing spectacular that would be seen frequently on concert stages. The liner notes attempt to draw a comparison between ... Read More

Despite his deep involvement in the Lutheran church and his more extensive writing of liturgical music, this album focuses on the secular piano trios of Christian Palmer. Most of his piano trio output was written for family music-making, himself on the cello and his sons playing violin and piano. While a family that could play such works is clearly rather gifted, the compositions are, on the whole, nothing spectacular that would be seen frequently on concert stages. The liner notes attempt to draw a comparison between Palmer and Mendelssohn, but these similarities are not clearly noticeable. Palmer's works lean much more heavily toward the classical era than the early romantic. Balance between the instruments, counterpoint, virtuosity in the piano part, and broad romantic gestures are no where near as elaborate as are heard in Mendelssohn's piano trios. The most surprising compositional technique is likely his use of the minor mode to conclude trios in a major key. The performance given by the... Read Less