‘That bass line was meant to sound gruff! These semiquavers scatter effortlessly in the upper register.’ Pianist Jan Rautio offers a defence of the decision to play Beethoven on the fortepiano in the booklet notes to this, the first volume of a projected Beethoven cycle from the Rautio Piano Trio. In truth, however, their performances of these two Op 1 Trios make his case from the very first chord. It just sounds right: crisp, purposeful, with a percussive keyboard kick in the bass, and recorded in an acoustic that suggests a sense of scale. Beethoven’s Op 1 Trios are hardly heaven-stormers but they’re the first steps on the greatest of all musical journeys, and the Rautio Piano Trio evoke that promise of grandeur without sacrificing any of the youthful humour of these two delightful works.

The Rautios have previously recorded the Ghost Trio on modern instruments: Andrew Farach-Colton (3/18) heard ‘classical poise, deftness and textural clarity’. The same applies in these period-instrument interpretations – but there’s also that earthy, spring-loaded fortepiano left hand, and an overall balance that allows all three instruments to slip effortlessly in and out of the foreground. There’s a flashing verve in the Scherzo of Trio No 1; a conspiratorial wit to the corresponding movement in Trio No 2; and overall, a sense of play that never precludes a broader sense of the music’s form. It sparkles, but never scrambles.

True, I’d have liked more lyricism from Rautio in the two slow movements, but bear with it: cellist Victoria Simonsen and (in particular) violinist Jane Gordon tease out their melodies with an unforced, slow-burn eloquence, warmed by little touches of vibrato. ‘Perhaps this won’t change your life, but it could make it more interesting’, says Rautio. I’d say he’s selling himself short.

To my mind, one of the great pleasures of early Beethoven is encountering the future giant as he flexes his muscles, makes his first confident flights of fancy and exercises his ever-increasing power and strength. While admitting there is of course more than a fair share of wisdom after the event about making such an observation, it is nonetheless substantially true. It certainly is, I think, regarding the three Piano Trios of op 1. First given in 1793 at the Viennese home of Beethoven’s patron Prince Lichnowsky, to whom the trios were dedicated, they were revised before publication two years later. Advised by Haydn to make changes, Beethoven not only admitted to his youthful profligacy, observing he had introduced into one work ‘enough music for twenty’, but thanked Haydn for his advice. When the trios were published in 1795, very likely courtesy of a secret subvention by Lichnowsky, they were a great success among the Viennese. It is said they earned him nearly two years’ worth of the salary he had been paid in the post he occupied in Bonn before coming to Vienna.

One of the first things to be noted about the op 1 trios is their ambitious scale. Unlike the three-movement trios of Haydn and Mozart, they are cast in four movements and planned as expansive works, which, if no longer containing enough ideas for twenty, are arresting pieces overflowing with the young composer’s sheer joie de vivre and the unadulterated pleasure of composing. It is these qualities that are so convincingly and compellingly communicated by the period-instrument Rautio Piano Trio (Jane Gordon, violin; Victoria Simonson, cello and Jan Rautio, fortepiano). Both string players play original 17th-century instruments, by G B Rogeri and G Granico respectively, while Rautio’s is based by Paul McNulty on an 1805 Viennese fortepiano built by the Walters. It’s an exceptionally fine-sounding instrument, with an appealingly silvery top and a richly endowed bass capable of powerful chords when necessary. To hear how well and beguilingly the instruments can interact, try the lovely Adagio cantabile (ii) of the Trio in E flat (No 1), where the violin’s song-like melody is joined in dialogue by the cello and then delightful filigree work by the piano, all beautifully balanced. Throughout tempi are well judged, with the players not misled in the ‘slow’ movement of the G-major Trio by the Largo con expressione marking, achieving just the right flow for the movement. And for sheer exuberance go the Finale of the same Trio, with its headlong chasse-like impetus disrupted only by what sounds like a bucolic dance. Technically the playing is of a high order, with Rautio himself, as one might expect in these works, stealing the thunder, his splendid articulation and clean finger-work being a constant pleasure.  Just occasionally I thought the violinist’s tone a little thin, though this may be the recording, which in all other aspects is fine. Overall this is an outstanding addition to the catalogue and it is much to be hoped that the Rautios will complete the set with the C-minor Trio.

Fortepiano renderings of Beethoven’s keyboard works are increasingly popular these days. This recording comes with a persuasive encomium to the instrument’s potential by its fortepianist, Jan Rautio, who blames his violinist Jane Gordon for infecting him with her love of period instruments, and for what they can do to reveal ‘hidden truths’ in Baroque music. But he was more than ready to be infected, having noticed how difficult it was to achieve good balance in a group dominated by a modern piano.

‘I wanted transparency without sounding feeble,’ he writes, ‘variety of tone without resorting to melodramatic undulations of volume; greater clarity of articulation.’ A fortepiano, he adds, makes light work of these tasks. But he goes on to praise the fortepiano for those precise qualities which the modern piano’s homogeneity of tone obliterates: with a hint of the harpsichord in its bass, its lyricism in the middle register, and its sparkling top.

And it has to be said that the Rautio Trio’s sound vindicates these claims. Rautio’s instrument has an unusually warm and rounded tone, which melds and contrasts satisfyingly with Victoria Simonsen’s cello and Gordon’s violin. These works were written when Beethoven was 23 and just beginning his career, and these players bring a suitable freshness to this music. And in this Opus 1 they help us to sense both Beethoven’s debt to Haydn, and also adumbrations of great works to come, notably their unique amalgam of muscularity and sweetness, and in their expansive and exploratory second-movement Adagios. And these players make the most of Beethoven’s playfulness, notably in the E flat major work’s finale, where the fortepiano provokes some mischievous squeaks from the violin.