Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos, Yo-Yo Ma Announce New BEETHOVEN FOR THREE Album

Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos, and Yo-Yo Ma have announced the fifth album in their acclaimed Beethoven for Three series, out August 28, 2026 on Sony Classical. Pairing Beethoven's Symphony No. 3, Eroica, with Leonore Overture No. 3 from the composer's only opera, Fidelio, this new recording marks another milestone in three friends' journey through the marvels of one extraordinary composer. This installment welcomes celebrated violist Antoine Tamestit into the ensemble for the first time. The Scherzo from Symphony No. 3, Eroica, is available now.

Beethoven for Three features three friends in pursuit of the essential elements of Beethoven's musical language, presenting his most iconic symphonies in arrangements for small groups. By performing the symphonies on three (and now four) instruments, the artists give audiences a rare look at Beethoven's compositional language at its most intimate and raw.

'We all feel that being able to participate in a symphony is such a wonderful thing to do,' says Ma. 'One of the things that has separated people since recording began is the categories that we put people in, in which chamber musicians, orchestra players, people who play concertos, people who do transcriptions, people who compose, people who conduct, are all viewed as separate categories with no overlap. That siloed thinking discourages actual creativity and collaboration between people. And so, we feel that one of the things that is really important to do today is to actually go back to the first principles of music, the simple interaction between friends who want to do something together.'

'The beginnings of all this music were first arranged,' says Ax. 'It used to be completely normal that the first release of a symphony would not be the full score. You wouldn't get that music until dozens of years later. You would get the arrangement for one piano four hands, or trio, or quartet, that was done by the composer and handed to the publisher. And that's how you got to know the music.'

An avid performer of chamber music, violist Antoine Tamestit joins the group following a recent collaboration with the trio in recital at the Koussevitzky Music Shed at Tanglewood, opening the 2025–26 Tanglewood season. Tamestit, a founding member of Trio Zimmermann with Frank Peter Zimmermann and Christian Poltéra, has a rich, deeply colored tone and formidable technique that have made him one of the most sought-after violists of his generation, with premieres including Jörg Widmann's Viola Concerto, which was written for him.

Pianist and composer Shai Wosner's arrangements have become central to the project's distinctive sound and reflect the tradition of Beethoven's own era, when symphonic works were commonly disseminated through chamber arrangements. Wosner has arranged Beethoven's Symphonies Nos. 1, 4, and 6 for the trio in addition to this new arrangement of 'Eroica' for quartet. His arrangement of the Sixth Symphony, 'Pastorale,' was singled out by Gramophone for the way it honors Beethoven's original writing without being confined by it. Wosner's own honors as a pianist include an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award.

This new album brings together two defining masterpieces from Beethoven's heroic period, the 'Eroica' Symphony's journey from struggle to triumph and the Leonore Overture's vivid musical drama capture a composer expanding the possibilities of Classical form and paving the way toward the early Romantic era.

Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 Eroica represents one of the most profound artistic statements of the composer's heroic period. Originally conceived as a tribute to Napoleon Bonaparte, whom Beethoven admired as a champion of the ideals of the French Revolution and the promise of a new age, the symphony underwent a profound transformation when Napoleon crowned himself emperor in 1804. Disillusioned by what he viewed as Napoleon's abandonment of those ideals, Beethoven famously erased the dedication and instead presented the work as a broader exploration of heroism itself.

Complementing the 'Eroica' on the album is Beethoven's Leonore Overture No. 3, originally conceived as an overture to Fidelio. First composed around 1803, the opera underwent nearly a decade of revision before achieving success in its final 1814 version. In the process, Beethoven wrote four overtures for the work: three now known as the Leonore Overtures, named after the opera's heroine, and a fourth, the Fidelio Overture. Of the four, Leonore No. 3 has become the most celebrated as a standalone concert work. The piece references the dramatic climax of the final act of Fidelio, distilling the essence of Beethoven's heroic-humanist opera into a concentrated fifteen minutes of potent, exhilarating music.

Ax, Kavakos, and Ma first performed together as a trio at the 2014 Tanglewood Festival, playing a program of Brahms's piano trios; their first recording effort, Brahms: The Piano Trios, was released in 2017 to universal critical acclaim, with Gramophone observing that the performances 'get straight to the heart of Brahms's music, relishing its pull of opposites.'

The concept of Beethoven for Three has its origins at the 2021 Tanglewood Music Festival, where Ax, Kavakos, and Ma first performed Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 in trio format. The performance was an instant success, leading to the first release in the series, Beethoven for Three: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 5, released December 3, 2021 on Sony Classical, featuring an arrangement of Symphony No. 2 attributed to Beethoven's friend and student Ferdinand Ries, working under the composer's supervision, alongside a new arrangement of Symphony No. 5 by contemporary English composer Colin Matthews. Gramophone noted that 'the performance by Ax, Kavakos and Ma is not just aptly intense—the opening Allegro con brio is as involving as any orchestral performance I've heard—but also incredibly sensitive to the music's crucial juxtapositions, as one can hear in the Andante con moto, where they so deftly balance delicacy and heroic swagger—note the vulnerability in Kavakos's tone at 1'42'—in a way that I find deeply moving.'

The second installment, Symphony No. 6 'Pastorale' and Op. 1, No. 3, followed on November 11, 2022, offering listeners two very different sides of the composer using the same three voices: the brilliant exploration of each instrument's expressive capabilities in the C Minor piano trio, and, in the 'Pastorale,' lovingly reimagined for trio by Shai Wosner, a vision of the piano, violin, and cello transcending their own identities to become, in turn, bird, brook, and storm. The Strad noted that 'the blend and balance between these three hugely experienced players is just about ideal in the relaxed outer movements [of Symphony No. 6] and in the 'Scene by the Brook', while the 'Peasants' Merrymaking' is as rustic and playful as the 'Storm' is disruptive...This is Ax's stamping ground and he brings his string-playing friends along with him for a performance that beguiles and delights from beginning to end.'

The third volume, pairing the unforgettable 'Archduke' trio with Symphony No. 4, again arranged by Wosner, was released March 15, 2024. The London Times wrote, 'Ax's ten fingers provide most of the symphony's harmonic support, leaving Ma and Kavakos free to concentrate on melodic charms and quirks. All unite in ensemble verve and kaleidoscopic hues... intimate chamber music playing doesn't come much better than this.'

The fourth volume, released August 22, 2025, featured Symphony No. 1 (Op. 21) alongside the 'Gassenhauer' (Op. 11) and 'Ghost' (Op. 70, No. 1) piano trios — three works spanning more than a decade of the composer's output, from his early years well into his 'middle' period.

Tracklist

Beethoven for Three: Symphony No. 3 Eroica and Leonore Overture No. 3

Yo-Yo Ma, Leonidas Kavakos, Emanuel Ax, Antoine Tamestit

Symphony No. 3 in E-Flat Major, Op. 55 Eroica

1. I. Allegro con brio

2. II. Marcia funebre. Adagio assai

3. III. Scherzo. Allegro vivace

4. IV. Finale. Allegro molto

5. Leonore Overture No. 3 in C Major, Op. 72b

Photo Credit: Vincent Tullo

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