Best known for his operas Hans Heiling and Der Vampyr, Heinrich Marschner (1795-1861) also composed seven substantial piano trios that were admired and enjoyed by no less than Robert and Clara Schumann. It’s not at all difficult to justify the Schumanns’ enthusiasm. Marschner was a gifted melodist, a fine craftsman and had a keen dramatic sense that gives shape and direction to his often substantial musical forms. I wouldn’t go so far as to classify either of the two works here – the first and last of the seven – as an outright masterpiece, yet they each offer sufficient interest and cleverness to warrant involved listening.

Beethoven’s piano trios seem to have been among Marschner’s models but there are also fascinating echoes of Schubert (try the connecting passage at 5'08" in the first movement of the Op 29 Trio, composed in 1823) and Mendelssohn (the scherzos of both trios). I’m quite taken with the Andantino con espressione of the earlier A minor Trio with its winsome scalar melody that leads us on a circumscribed yet highly picturesque journey. And if you imagine these as not much more than lightweight, domestic entertainment, the anxious string-writing in the First Trio’s concluding Vivace should convince you that Marschner could bring emotional weight to his music as easily as charm.

When we get to the F major Trio, Op 167 (1855), the string-writing is noticeably more independent, and one can hear, too, how Marschner’s harmonic vocabulary has expanded in the intervening decades. Again, the slow movement is a highlight. Here, he contrasts a long, playful solo piano introduction (most of it dancing in the instrument’s sparkling upper registers) with more lyrical string-writing, before bringing these two foils together at 2'27" to endearing effect. The craggy opening of the final Vivace is full of bold gestures, and if the composer can’t quite sustain this sense of adventure and excitement for long, the central development section (starting at 6'21") shows he could be imaginative when it came to elaborating his ideas. That said, a few passages now feel hackneyed, like the bit at 8'08", which wouldn’t be out of place accompanying a silent action film from the early days of cinema.

All in all, I’m most grateful to the Gould Piano Trio for their committed advocacy of these neglected, often delightful works, and I’m eagerly awaiting the next instalment.