Emerging from the pandemic like a bubble of oxygen from the ocean depths, this recording project is built around two ideas that lie at the heart of the Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth. On one hand it perfectly embodies the ideal of a continuing relationship between masters and artists in residence by bringing together three generations of musicians with Miguel da Silva, Lorenzo Gatto and the young artists currently in residence at the Chapel, providing an opportunity for the former to pass on their mastery and knowledge to the latter. On the other, it also fulfils a desire to bring together a number of artists in an ensemble that unites chamber music with a string orchestra for major works. The string octet, a form made even more attractive by its rarity, was adopted by two composers of genius: Mendelssohn and Enescu. These youthful works, nonetheless mature and filled with musical riches, echo each other here by highlighting their contrasts.

Brahms’s Trio op.114, originally conceived for clarinet (like the two Sonatas op.120), is presented here in its version with viola: ‘Like all Brahms’s works, this trio is a vocal, melodic piece. And the viola is perhaps the instrument of the string quartet that comes closest to the human voice’, says violist Miguel Da Silva. ‘This version with viola obliges me, as a cellist, to listen differently: our two stringed instruments must “breathe” together and match their articulation’, continues Xavier Phillips. These three works from late in Brahms’s career testify to his modernity: ‘Brahms was often considered a classical composer who was impervious to modernity, the guardian of a certain tradition’, says pianist François-Frédéric Guy, who agrees with Schoenberg that he was, on the contrary, highly innovative: ‘We have a fine example, in the trio, of the extraordinary modernity of his combinations of rhythm and timbre: he is a total innovator.'