Beaux Arts Trio

The Beaux Arts Trio was formed at the Berkshire Music Festival (at what became the Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts) in 1955 by French violinist Dabiel Guilet, German pianist Menahem Pressler and American cellist Bernard Greenhouse. They had performed together in recording sessions and joined up for a tour that took them to 45 venues across the United States. Over the years, Pressler remained while other violinists and cellists came and went. They recorded and performed many major classical pieces for piano trio by composers such as Beethoven, Dvorak, Haydn, Mozart, Schumann, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky.

By 1955, Greenhouse had played with the CBS Symphony and the Dorian Quartet while Guilet had been concert master of the NBC Symphony; they worked together on a recording of Camille Saint-Saëns's 'Carnival of the Animals' and decided to form their own trio. Known at first for fairly free interpretations of the classics, they later gave more strict renditions but also performed music by contemporary composers. With various members, the Beaux Arts Trio gave more than 100 concerts at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and appeared annually at Tanglewood. Their final concert, shortly before their split, was on 21st August 2008 and was recorded and archived by NPR Music.