Established for decades as the preeminent piano trio within a crowded arena, the Beaux Arts Trio earned distinction through its exacting yet unadorned approach to performing and documenting the full range of standard Central European trio works.
The ensemble first appeared in public on July 13, 1955, after French violinist Daniel Guilet convened its members; although he initially favored naming the group after himself, he ultimately chose a French title designed to survive changes in personnel. Born in France in 1899, Guilet had already toured extensively as both a recitalist and chamber musician, notably with the Calvet Quartet, before settling in the United States in 1941. He entered the NBC Symphony in 1944 and rose to concertmaster in 1951. Guilet had previously collaborated in chamber settings and studio sessions with cellist Bernard Greenhouse and pianist Menahem Pressler. The three musicians first united for an MGM recording of Carnival of the Animals, found the combination mutually satisfying, and soon formalized the trio.
Greenhouse, who was born in New Jersey in 1916, served as principal cellist of the CBS Symphony and belonged to the Dorian Quartet. Pressler, born in Magdeburg, Germany, in 1923, escaped with his family to Palestine following Hitler’s rise to power and had already established himself as an international soloist by his early twenties. In late 1955 the group undertook a forty-five-city American tour that consisted largely of modest community engagements.
Early interpretations by the trio tended toward relative freedom, yet after Guilet stepped down in 1969, incoming violinist Isidore Cohen encouraged a stricter observance of written markings. Cohen, born in Brooklyn in 1922, had co-founded the Schneider String Quartet and later performed as second violin with the Juilliard Quartet. The resulting Cohen-Greenhouse-Pressler lineup became celebrated for scrupulous readings that combined breadth with vitality.
Beginning in 1987, personnel shifts grew more frequent when retiring cellist Greenhouse yielded his place to Peter Wiley. Cohen departed in 1992 and was succeeded by Ida Kavafian, an American violinist born in Istanbul in 1952 who had co-established the chamber ensemble Tashi in 1973.
Described as a demanding personality, Pressler acquired two further partners in 1998: violinist Young Uck Kim, born in South Korea in 1947 and known chiefly for solo appearances apart from collaborations with pianist Emanuel Ax and cellist Yo-Yo Ma, along with Brazilian cellist Antonio Meneses, born in 1957, who had captured first prize at the 1982 Tchaikovsky International Competition.
From the late 1950s onward the Beaux Arts Trio maintained an extended recording agreement with Philips. Its inaugural undertaking was a complete Beethoven cycle, while its most notable achievement was the 1970s documentation of Haydn’s entire trio output.
British violinist Daniel Hope, a founding member of the London International Quintet, assumed Kim’s position in early 2002. At age twenty-seven he became the youngest violinist ever to join the ensemble and arrived as an advocate for twentieth-century and contemporary repertoire, pledging to integrate “some element of contemporary music into every future program.”
