Piano Trio in E minor, Op. 90 (Dumky) - played by the Loveridge-Martin-Hooton Trio: David Martin (violin) Florence Hooton (cello) Iris Loveridge (piano)

Dvorak wrote his Dumky Trio in 1891, between frequent visits to England. It was his fourth and last essay for piano trio, a form over which he had shown growing mastery since the Op. 21 of some fifteen years earlier. The dumka, a Russian and Czech lament in which yearning melancholy and wild gaiety keep alternating, was in Dvorak's blood; he had already used it incidentally in the great A major Piano Quintet. In the present trio, however, all six movements are dumky. The danger lay, of course, in the music's being one long push-pull of fast-slow themes, but Dvorak magnificently justified the rink and, by sheer freshness of invention and a cleverly-managed key pattern, brought off a thrilling work.
T. H. Davies