Description:

This is the second collection of chamber music by Richard Stähl, a composer and music theorist who, like Korngold, Schoenberg, and Zemlinsky, was active at the end of the Viennese century and lived in exile in America. In the first collection (TOCC-210), we heard a duo of cello and piano, and in the second collection, we can hear a slightly larger "Piano Trio" and a song. The "Piano Trio," with its beautiful and majestic music, is in the tradition of the Viennese Romanticism of Beethoven and Schubert. The melancholy of the second movement is reminiscent of Brahms, while the "Three Romances," written four years later, is a sweet, lyrical song reminiscent of Korngold. The cello's slow, relaxed sound complements the singing. Laura Relofs (violin) [1-4], Seth Keaton (bass-baritone) [5-7], Stefan Koch (cello), Marie Siciliano (piano)