LDV76

PHILIPPE CASSARD, ANNE GASTINEL, DAVID GRIMAL 15 Why did you choose to record these two works in particular when you have all of Beethoven’s trios in your repertory? David Grimal: We didn’t choose the coupling straight away: initially we planned to record the first trio and the last, that’s to say, op.1 no.1 and the ‘Archduke’. At that stage, we wanted to build our recording around the idea of contrast: to bring out the differences between the two works and, by the same token, to show the evolution of Beethoven’s musical language. Then the idea occurred to us of replacing the early Trio op.1 no.1 by op.70 no.1, nicknamed the ‘Ghost’, in order to present the twomost emblematic works of the cycle on a single disc. I think there’s a genuine homogeneity and complementarity between these two works, both of which possess a metaphysical dimension. After all, they are his only trios to have acquired a title! And then, we shouldn’t forget that we live in a world where you have to know how to grab your audience’s attention, so the idea of bringing the ‘Ghost’ and the ‘Archduke’ together naturally seemed judicious to us. Last but not least, these trios are also the two that we’ve played together most often.