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Kaleidoscope Palm Court Trio - Vocalise

How refreshing to hear a programme of real light music for just three instruments; violin, cello & piano, with no wind or percussion to spice things up. The recorded format really lends itself to chamber music, as the ears quickly adapt to the intimacy of a small ensemble in a way hardly possible within the dynamic range of a full symphony orchestra. It means too, of course, that the playing must be ever more precise and expressive in order to please. The Kaleidoscope Palm Court Trio certainly pulls it off in these delightful arrangements of beautiful melodies. A mark of good piano trio writing is the equal prominence of all three instruments; it would be very easy to arrange light music with the tune in the violin, some kind of counter-melody in the cello and a pleasant um-cha-cha in the piano - not to say this doesn't happen, as it often does! - but the three voices are much more imaginatively used here. The programme has been well conceived, and at just under an hour, the disc makes for good start-to-finish listening - not pointlessly padded out to the full 80 minutes as are so many CDs these days. Treat it like a good old-fashioned LP, where the programme couldn't be any longer than this, and the producer couldn't afford to include any rubbish. Pure delight.

Peter Edwards - LMS Magazine

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