Kungsbacka Piano Trio Naxos 8.572040***

The first volume of Naxos’s new series of Haydn piano trios includes the most famous Haydn trio of all, the one nicknamed the Gypsy Rondo Trio, after its Rondo all’ Ongarese finale. It’s one of a set of three dedicated to Rebecca Schroeter, a music-loving widow (of the composer and pianist Johann Samuel Schroeter) who fell in love with Haydn, then more than 20 years her senior, in 1795 and, although Haydn was married, he returned her feelings. The trios are modest in their technical demands, but musically first-rate, as is the later Trio in E flat minor, dedicated to the Viennese pianist Magdalena von Kurzböck. The Kungsbacka Trio offer neat, mild-mannered, well-turned performances, largely unexceptionable, save that they occasionally sound a little too placid. See url.ie/af6o