Florestan’s records on the Hyperion label have received outstanding reviews. All their discs have been nominated for Gramophone Awards, and are recommended choices in major collectors’ guides. Their disc of the first two trios by Schumann won the 1999 Gramophone Award for chamber music and a host of other accolades. Their disc of French piano trios was cited by Classic CD as ‘proof, if proof were needed, that the Florestan Trio is one of the finest chamber ensembles of the present day.’ Their recording of Schubert’s B flat trio was described by The Times of London as ‘marvellously alive, played with palpable joy and an unerring sense of ensemble.’ They followed this with a CD of Schubert’s great E flat Trio, which The Times greeted with ‘Clear the decks for paradise. Lock the doors, unplug the phone. Bliss awaits.’

Their Hyperion recording of the complete Beethoven piano trios has again had critics reaching for superlatives. The Independent acclaimed Volume 1: ‘This is playing of quite extraordinary sensitivity and depth. I can hardly wait for the next volume.’ Of Volume 2, The Strad wrote, ‘The Florestan have made some truly remarkable records, but this may be their finest yet.’ The Sunday Times went further when Volume 3 appeared: ‘Perhaps the finest contemporary exponents of this repertoire performing on modern instruments today.’ The Times greeted Volume 4 by saying that ‘with the Florestan Trio’s fourth and last Hyperion CD of Beethoven piano trios, you enter the Elysian fields straight away. Is there any team of musicians that currently plays this repertoire with such ensemble spirit, verve and understanding?’

Florestan is a regular guest at all the UK’s major festivals and performs frequently in London’s principal concert halls. Recent tours have taken them to South America, Israel, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, and they regularly visit other European countries. This season they have performed the Beethoven Triple with the Ulster Orchestra and the Manchester Camerata, and appeared in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and in the Konzerthaus in Vienna. Their first major tour of the USA, including their Carnegie Hall debut, took place in March this year and they follow it up with a second tour in February 2005.

The trio has had several works specially composed for it by Peteris Vasks, Judith Weir, Sally Beamish, John Casken, and Rudi Martinus van Dijk, and in June 2004 they gave the world premiere of a new trio specially written for them by Judith Weir.

Recently the Trio has founded a charitable company, The Florestan Trust, which aims to develop public awareness and knowledge of music through the presentation of concerts, educational work and commissioning new works. The Florestan Trust runs the Trio’s Chamber Music Festival at Peasmarsh in East Sussex which was started in 1998 and is now an annual event in June.