Kahn: Complete Piano Trios

Hyperion Trio, Kahn, Robert

CPO 777791

After works by Josef Marx, the Hyperion Trio dedicates its new cpo CD to the piano trios of the Mannheim-born composer Robert Kahn, who was born in 1865 and so highly esteemed by Johannes Brahms that he advised him on composition. And Kahn himself admired Brahms and reported retrospectively: "From my early youth I had a deep love and admiration for the musician Brahms. Now, when he welcomed me in the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, he added a deep, even rapturous love for the man of Brahms, which filled my whole heart, but which I carefully concealed from him in shy reserve." Kahn studied piano with Ernst Frank and Emil Paur and composition with Vinzenz Lachner. After his early Mannheim years he studied composition from 1882 with Friedrich Kiel and Woldemar Bargiel in Berlin and from 1885 with Joseph Rheinberger in Munich. In 1897 Kahn took over a class for ensemble playing at the Royal Academy of Music in Berlin; appointed professor in 1904, he held this position until his retirement in 1930. Kahn's pupils include Wilhelm Kempff, Ferdinand Leitner, Günter Raphael and Arthur Rubinstein. In 1939 the composer managed to emigrate to England. He created his piano trios between 1893 and 1914, possibly reworking the piano trio in E minor, which was not published until 1922, before going to press. This five-movement work, announced by Kahn as "a kind of serenade", has its own unique tone, which enriches Kahn's melodic-singing writing style and colourful sonority.

CD x 2

CPO

29/04/2014

761203779123

American Record Guide: 'Critic’s Choice' (2015)