Mozart: Divertimento in E flat major, K563 (with Schubert's Piano Trio in B flat major, D471)

"The players of Trio Zimmermann do this Divertimento full justice. Tempos are well chosen, the two outer movements played to suggest an apt forward-pressing animation but never so fast as to cause blurring of rapidly articulated passages. Tonally, the group avoids unwanted lushness and prominent vibrato, thereby suggesting, without duplicating, an eighteenth-century sonority." (International Record Review, March 2011)

"[Trio Zimmermann] narrow the gap between the learned and the popular...No detachment in Schubert's unfinished one-movement Trio either. The musicians are consistently sympathetic to changing facets that reflect a 19-year-old composer trying to find his own voice. And BIS's SACD recording is throughout of a bloom and lucidity that captures the subtleties of performance." (Gramophone, April 2011)

"This is an incredibly stylish, charming modern-style performance of one of Mozart's chamber masterworks. The Trio Zimmermann is an all-star ensemble of soloists: violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann (on Fritz Kreisler's old Strad), violist Antoine Tamestit (who is so good that had Mozart known he would play this, there would surely be more viola solos), and cellist Christian Poltéra. A quick scientific test confirms this disc to be an ideal album for listening while lying in bed with a book on a lazy weekend morning, provided you have headphones or bedroom speakers which can convey the flawless chamber-hall acoustic.

There is a Naxos release of the Mozart divertimento, released almost simultaneously with this one, also with three starry performers. Nobody seems to have compared them before, but they're not too dissimilar. The Naxos recording is a mere 14 seconds faster, with identical timings for a couple movements; it comes with a four-minute Mozart trio fragment, while this comes with Schubert's." (MusicWeb Nov 2013)