Haydn: Piano Trios w/ Flute – Musica Domestica

House music

English music publisher John Bland commissioned these three trios for piano, flute and cello from Haydn and published them in 1790 as parts of his series Le tout Ensemble. They display the ever inventive composer, working in the contrasts created between the witty, almost jaunty, first presentation of his themes and their later transformation into rather more elegiac strains inspired in this case, perhaps, by the veiled sound of the transverse flute.

Musica Domestica is an international ensemble, specialising in performing late 18th and early 19th century music on period instruments. The name of the group in effect means “house music”, and is a reflection of the custom for chamber music to be performed almost exclusively in private houses during this period. This recording was made at the beautiful Finchcocks Museum, using a pianoforte made by John Broadwood and Son (1801).