Currently in residence at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia, the Kandinsky Trio's musicians -- Elizabeth Bachelder, violin, Alan Weinstein, cello, and Benedict Goodfriend, piano-- have been performing together for 15 years. On the basis of the performances on this recording, their approach to music an be characterized in general as warmly romantic, possessing great dynamic range and the kind of intuitive gestalt that only arises from musicians who thoroughly understand one another's ideas and playing styles.

This is hardly the first recording of Circulo, Turina's delightful cycle of mini-tone poems evoking sunrise, midday, and twilight. I've heard four to date, and seen at least two more advertised on Web sites over recent years. It's good that this work and others by Joaquin Turina (1882-1949) are finally achieving a degree of success outside his native Spain. His influences were Impressionistic and neo-Classical, often at the same time; and musicians tend to focus on one or the other aspect in performance. The Kandinskys opt for the former, turning in a velvety reading that shimmers across the score.The Arbos Trio (Naxos 8.555870) brings out more of the work's neo-Classical dissonance, and gives us the "feverish bustle of life at noon" that william Badgett's liner notes mention. The far slower tempo adopted by the Kandinsky Trio hardly conveys bustle, but works in a different way: You can almost see the heat rising from the asphalt. Until now, the Arbos was my favorite version of Circulo, but the current release surpasses it in beauty and detail.

The composition date for the Four Combinations for Three Instruments by Henry Cowell (1887-1965) is never mentioned in the liner notes. From 1924, it shows the composer once again applying novel devices and ideas in a range of styles, which he would seldom capitalize upon in subsequent works. The musical material inconsistently realizes the potential of its concepts: The sinuously lyrical, overlapping string lines of the first movement recall Berg in their ever-descending, ambiguous tonal center, but not with sufficient length or dramatic arch to make a telling point; while the same technique applied to Baroque harmonies in the final largo merely creates an awkward pastiche. The Kandinskys appropriately tone down the lush warmth of their overall approach and adopt a somewhat cooler style, well suited to the music's leaner textures and mildly classicizing intent.