Beethoven: Piano Trios Vol. 2 (Nos 3 & 8 / Variations, Op. 44)

Since its foundation in 1968 the Stuttgart Piano Trio has won a considerable reputation for itself. In 1969 the Trio won the Mendelssohn Competition in Berlin and the International Radio Competition in Munich and since then has appeared in many of the leading cities of the world and at major festivals. The violinist Rainer Kussmaul was born in Mannheim in 1952 and trained in Stuttgart, later winning prizes in Montreal, Bucharest and Leipzig. He plays a violin made by Andrea Guarnedus in Cremona in 1692. The cellist Claus Kanngiesser joined the Trio in 1971, after study in Hamburg, where his teachers included Zara Nelsova, and masterclasses with Gaspar Cassado and Pablo Casals. He plays an instrument made in 1841 by Glen Francesco Pressenda. The pianist Monika Leonhard includes among her teachers Michelangeli and Alfred Brendel and completed her studies in Stuttgart in 1969.