Photo © Richard Lewisohn
Susan Tomes (piano), Anthony Marwood (violin), Richard Lester (cello)
The Florestan Trio was one of the world’s leading piano trios from 1995 until 2012. For almost seventeen years the group maintained the same personnel. Many of its records are benchmark recordings, nominated in collectors’ guides. The trio recently disbanded after a sold-out series of concerts in London’s Wigmore Hall. For the trio’s recordings, please visit the Hyperion Records website.
January 2011: Florestan Trio announces its final season
The Florestan Trio would like to announce its final season of concerts. After 16 years of exceptional achievement, and having recorded the major works of the Piano Trio repertoire to great acclaim, the career paths of the members of the Trio are diverging: Anthony Marwood will continue to develop his solo and directing activities; Richard Lester will be performing with the London Haydn Quartet, as a soloist and principal cello with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe; and Susan Tomes will pursue solo engagements and chamber music projects, as well as writing and broadcasting.
The Trio’s future concerts include a tour in March, the Florestan Festival at Peasmarsh in June, and will conclude with a celebratory Beethoven cycle at the Wigmore Hall, London, in January 2012. If you would like to read reviews of these concerts, the links are on my blog on the home page, under ‘Florestan Trio Reviews’.
The Florestan Trio would like to thank all its friends, audiences, promoters and trustees who have followed and supported the Trio over many years.
Some of the trio’s recent reviews:
“Trio gives near-perfect performance .. The ensemble is without flaw; its attention to detail is scrupulous and its phrasing is sensitive to the core.”
Palm Beach Daily News, 12 Mar 2008
“Right from the start of the first movement the English piano trio showed its greatness. The way these musicians — Susan Tomes, piano, Anthony Marwood, violin, and Richard Lester, cello — used subtle freedoms to characterize Beethoven’s unceasing invention represents ensemble playing of the highest order.”
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 12 Mar 2008
“Nationalism can often seep into the music world. The notion is that Russians know Tchaikovsky, Austrians know Mozart, and so forth. On Friday evening at the Library of Congress, the Florestan Trio arrived without a single composition from its British home and showed such ideas to be pure drivel. The group’s warmhearted and sympathetic playing brought out the insouciance and sheer novelty of pioneering American composer Charles Ives’s Piano Trio. They opened the concert with an explosive reading of Beethoven’s “Ghost” Trio, surging and dynamic but tastefully tempered by the trio’s sense of precision. At the close, Anton Arensky’s D Minor Trio received an account of graceful lyricism where pastoral string melodies and plush piano phrases connected to form a sun-dappled fabric.”
Washington Post, 10 Mar 2008
“The trio is recognized as one of the world’s finest. Yesterday demonstrated why: on top of formidable technique and musicianship, the members throw themselves so ardently into the performance that it’s hard for the audience not to be equally engrossed. It was some of the most riveting playing I’ve seen for a while.”
Montreal Gazette, 17 Mar 2008
“It’s a remarkable thing about the Brits. They can’t play football, but in music they’ve always been top. For example, the Florestan Trio belongs to the absolute best… this group sounds like an orchestra, and makes a piano trio sound like a symphony.”
Berlingske Tidende, Copenhagen, 6 Jun 2008
Awards:
- Gramophone Award 1999: Florestan Trio, for their recording of Schumann piano trios
- Royal Philharmonic Society Award 2000: Florestan Trio for their achievements in chamber music
