As pairings of composers go, there is a lot to commend Schubert and Weinberg. Apart from Schubert being one of Weinberg’s favourite composers, both had to reckon with a large contemporary shadow (Beethoven and Shostakovich), and both require judicious extramusical awareness from the players. What shape that ‘extra’ takes can determine how sincere or self-indulging a performance feels. In the case of Trio Con Brio Copenhagen, who celebrate their 25th anniversary in 2024, it is a game of two halves, with the outcome firmly in favour of Weinberg. In both cases the sweeping brilliance of the playing commands respect; but the expressive intensity that goes with it does not suit both composers equally.

I came to the Schubert E flat with my ears full of the recent third release of the Trio Wanderer’s acclaimed recording. They strike the perfect balance between expressivity and flow, freedom and discipline. Where the Wanderer’s Schubert is the last of the classicists, the Con Brio’s feels like a full-blown Romantic, determined to wear his heart on his sleeve. As immaculately executed as the performance is, its febrile inflections get in the way of forward momentum, at times feeling more in the service of the performers than of the music, and hovering dangerously close to self-indulgence: more a Kenneth Branagh approach than a Mark Rylance one, if you like. As an instance, in the cello theme at the opening of the second movement, the portamentos introduce a note of anachronistic Mahlerian irony. And the highly charged finale, as impressive as it is, flirts with mere freneticism: potentially thrilling in a one-off live performance, but for a recording destined for repeated listening surely overdone.

Weinberg’s Trio provides a more suitable vehicle for such outpourings of emotion and drama, with all the trimmings of swooping and swooning. With no surviving recording by the composer himself, there is no point of authorial reference in the way that we have for Weinberg’s Quintet. If the latter is anything to go by, qualities of strength and courage, built on restraint and under-statement, might have been closer to his ideal. But the Trio can take a more extrovert approach. The Con Brio certainly live up to their name, injecting everything with an extra dose of fiery energy. The relentless drive of the 5/16 second movement is breathtaking, and the emotional trajectory of the third movement – from numbness through defiance to quiet resignation – is well sustained. The cello’s initial non-vibrato ushers in this movement with a deeper shade of darkness, as striking in its way as the explosive outbursts further in the finale.