cd enchantée

How the recording came about …

The special sound of the trio d’anches fascinated us from the very beginning and constantly inspires us to think up new projects and programs for concerts. It always reminds us of the oldest way of making music we know of – singing! – especially when playing certain pieces where it feels as if endless cantilenas were flowing together.

Funnily enough, when working with contemporary composers, we are often greeted with scepticism on the composers’ part when faced with this rather extravagant combination of instruments. This scepticism, however, quickly turns to surprise and enthusiasm when they find out how homogenous the trio d’anches is, how varied the colour and tone of the ensemble are and how incredibly full the sound can be.

The final decision to record this CD was felled after quite a long creative pause in which we found that there were still only very few professional ensembles in the German-speaking world presenting this very repertoire. Therefore, we really felt the need to document some of the best works (in our opinion) from the trio d’anches’ original period as well as its evolution in the 20th and 21st century. To this end, we selected pieces composed at its height of popularity but also managed to convince two well-known Austrian composers to write music for this CD. Both Helmut Hödl and Thomas Heinisch were extremely impressed with what our instruments had to offer and absolutely thrilled with the end result.

Their five beautiful pieces on our CD each bear the composers’ unique mark, even though they are each completely different in their intensity, beauty, intimacy, playfulness and sound.

Through this CD, we hope to bring joy to many, to awaken curiosity and maybe even surprise.