Turkish Piano Trios

This album of piano trios by four Turkish composers, the first in a series, covers three generations of composers whose music combines traditional rhythms and modalities with established Western classical sonorities. Hasan Ferid Alnar represents the ‘Turkish Five’ collective, his style drawing on the monophonic textures and rhythmic cycles of traditional makam music, while Ferit Tüzün’s lyrical and fervent piano trio hints at folk melodies rather than using them as concrete material. İlhan Baran described his spellbinding Transformations as ‘a kind of atmospheric state of mind’, and from the younger generation, Oğuzhan Balcı’s Piano Trio No. 1 expresses a tranquillity reminiscent of the Anatolian soul.