The Phoenix Piano Trio (Jonathan Stone, violin, Marie Macleod, cello, Sholto Kynoch, piano) is a comparatively recent creation: the Trio made its debut at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building in February 2009.

But although the group was recently formed, it wasn’t altogether freshly minted — the players were longstanding friends and colleagues, which meant that they quickly sounded as if they had been working together as a trio all their lives.

Always a risk with a piano trio is the danger that the piano will dominate, or even swamp, the strings, and that’s certainly a challenge in Beethoven’s famous ‘Archduke’ Trio, Op. 97, which the Phoenix has chosen for its debut CD (Stone Records 5060192780178). Recorded live in the Holywell Music Room during last year’s Beyond Beethoven series, Kynoch’s piano does indeed set off in assertive fashion — although no more so than Vladimir Ashkenazy in his recording with Itzhak Perlman and Lynn Harrell, which I played as a random comparison. But there is often tenderness too, plus a moving gravity followed by delicate, floating interchanges between the three instruments in the third movement Andante. This could send you into a reverie, which will be brought to a cheerful halt by the exuberant jump into the finale — there is no break between the two movements. I’m sure that this performance will be particularly treasured by the well disciplined (that is apparently cough-free) audience on the night, who applauded long and enthusiastically at the end.

The CD also includes Beethoven’s Trio in E flat major, Op 70, No 2. In this much less well known companion to piece to the famed ‘Ghost’ trio, Beethoven gives the opening to the cello not the piano, emphasising that all three instruments are to be equal. This work really allows the Phoenix’s integrated sound to shine, with a delightful conversation between piano, violin and cello taking place to a particularly catchy tune in the third movement.