Franz Peter Schubert

The Two Piano Trios

Fujita Piano Trio

    Franz Schubert was born on 31st January 1797 in Vienna as the 12th (fourth surviving) child. He had three elder brothers and one younger sister. His father was a schoolmaster, originally from Moravia, who followed his brother who moved to Vienna few years earlier to establish a school. Schubert’s father worked as an assistant to his brother, until he gained a position of his own in the suburb of Himmelpfortgrund in Lichtental as a schoolmaster...

Arisa Fujita, violin ~ Honoka Fujita, cello ~ Megumi Fujita, piano

The Fujita sisters from Japan have been playing chamber music together since early childhood. They made a highly acclaimed debut at the Wigmore Hall in March 1999 and they were invited to give a Purcell Room recital in June 2000 by the Kirckman Concert Society. Also in June, they made a successful debut at Oji Hall in Tokyo, Japan.
Concert engagements have taken the Trio to Canada, France, Italy, Ireland, Romania, Egypt, Morocco and Turkey, and they have won numerous awards and prizes, both as a Trio and individually. Arisa won the Audi Junior Musician Competition when she was only fifteen years old, Honoka won all the cello prizes at the Guildhall School, and Megumi won Fourth Prize at the Montreal International Piano Competition.
 Arisa studied with David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music, London (where she now teaches), Honoka studied at the Guildhall School with Jennifer Ward Clarke and Raphael Wallfisch, where the Trio also received coaching from the Takacs Quartet. Megumi studied at the Menuhin School with Louis Kentner, Simon Nicholls and Vlado Perlemuter and continued her studies at the Royal College of Music with Irina Zaritskaya. They won the Chamber Music Prize at the Guildhall School in 1994.

Five out of Five by P-G Bergfors of Göteborgsposten (Swedish dayly newspaper)

CELESTIAL SCHUBERT

Such riches, such a gift! The two Schubert Piano Trios for the first time on the same maxed out CD, in a luminous, well balanced recording. And the way these three Japanese sisters are playing! Their skilful phrasing, their sensitivity to the Schubert intimacies, their natural choice of tempi, their obvious dexterities in the musical details with out loosing any sense of spontaneity (which I suppose comes from the fact that they play concerts and record from memory, i.e. without sheet music in front of them)

The feel of this recording is as it was a live recording by Schubert in two of his most blissful chamber music works. The interpretation of the slow movements is better than any recording I can remember. And their frisky playing in the concluding movements of both trios is uplifting.

P-G. Bergfors (Göteborgsposten 18/12 2007)

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Piano Trio No.1 in B flat major D898 Op.99  I Allegro moderato II Andante un con mosso III Scherzo, Allegro - Trio IV Rondo, Allegro vivace - Presto Piano Trio No.2 in E flat major D929 Op.100  I Allegro II  Andante con moto III Scherzando, allegro moderato – Trio IV Allegro moderato

NOTE! - The playing length of the CD is over 80 minutes, this might make it unplayable on certain older CD & DVD players!