ERNST BACON (1898-1990): Piano Trio No. 2 (First Recording), LEO SOWERBY (1895-1968): Piano Trio, H 312.

Description: Hailed by The New York Times as “a composer known for echoing America,” Bacon infuses his 31-minute, six-movement trio from 1987 with American influences including marches, folksong-like melodies, and jazz rhythms, validating Virgil Thomson’s assessment of Bacon’s music as “full of melody and variety; honest and skillful and beautiful.” Sowerby’s big (37 minutes) three-movement trio (1953) is “a work of tremendous integrity” that exhibits an “imposing structure, contrapuntal gymnastics, and a concern for instruments sounding as good as they can” (Classical Net). Sometimes virtuosic, sometimes reflective, the work is distinguished by an ever-evolving rhythmic and harmonic interplay between instruments. Lincoln Trio.