Winner of the 2019 Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition and BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists, the Mithras Trio launch their debut on disc with the adorable Phantasie Trio by Frank Bridge that was awarded first prize in the 1907 Cobbett Competition. An impressive reading it is, too, as shapely as it is cogent, perhaps not quite as tonally alluring as, say, the Dartington Trio’s account (last sighted on Hyperion Helios, 8/01) or that of the Bernard Roberts Trio (Black Box, 9/00), but thoroughly gratifying nonetheless. Annotator Julian Philips makes mention of Bridge’s Second Piano Trio of 1929, and fleeting points of contact with its Scherzo are indeed detectable in the subtly variegated colours and luminous textures of the dazzling Presto centrepiece (‘Lapis Lazuli’) of Helen Grime’s Three Whistler Miniatures. Completed in 2011, this fastidiously crafted triptych was premiered at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, which houses the exquisite pastels by the great American painter.

Next comes another enticing discovery in the shape of the Piano Trio No 1 that Budapest-born Iván Erőd (1936-2019) fashioned for the Haydn Trio Wien in 1976. Cast in three movements, it’s a clean-cut, resourceful and approachable piece in which the composer’s Hungarian roots are very much on display (the intensely songful slow movement is especially delectable). Proceedings close with the sultry and sensuous ‘Danza de la moza donosa’, the second of Ginastera’s Danzas argentinas, Op 2 (for solo piano but arranged here by the group’s cellist, Leo Popplewell).

Boasting strikingly truthful sound and balance, this is an enjoyable release, and I look forward to hearing more from this talented young ensemble.