Trio Solisti: Brahms Trios

Reviews

STRAD MAGAZINE August 2005:
Violinist Maria Bachmann, cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach and pianist Jon Klibonoff play this glorious music
with rare commitment and insight. Whenever the music turns passionate and physically propulsive they sound in their element, for example in their scorching handling of the finale of op. 8. The tempo injection
just before the end is superbly judged and the cataclysmic final bars thrust home to devastating effect. This is a full-blooded reading, opulently recorded with the strings suitably prominent, that makes no apologies for taking this overtly symphonic score out of the chamber room and into the concert hall.

The notoriously tricky Andante grazioso third movement of op. 101 is perfectly handled, giving the music as much warmth and affection as it will take without undermining its air of tantalizing emotional restraint. Once again the free-flowing adrenaline of the finale has one on the edge of one's seat as it might at a first rate concert performance. No less thrilling is the way the players dig deep throughout the first part of the opening Allegro energico, ensuring that even the most high-pressure bow strokes are sounded against cantabile bedrock. This is to set this highly talented group against the very best the catalogue has to offer. More please! - Julian Haylock


The Buffalo News:
These musicians really bounce off each other, digging deep into this sonorous, stately, utterly heart-melting music. The robust, romantic themes shine, and the thrilling gypsy syncopations, too, as in the finale of the wonderful Trio Op. 101, the lesser-heard of these two beautiful trios. Trio Solisti behave like soloists, each putting his or her own spin on the music. The performances have breathing room and spontaneity. - Mary Kunz Goldman

Arts Journal.com: Daily Digest of Arts in New York
Vigorous, rich-toned, splendidly disciplined performances of two romantic masterpieces, brought to you by the group for which Paul Moravec wrote his Pulitzer-winning Tempest Fantasy. As good as anything the Beaux Arts Trio recorded in its prime. - Terry Teachout


Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
*****
Trio adds freshness to Brahms
Experts often cite a glut of recordings of canonical works as the reason the classical recording industry is in the dumps... but today's artists should never completely cease recording the standard repertoire. Occasional new canonical recordings are healthy. Classical music lives in the continuing interpretation, after all.

But listening to Trio Solisti's outstanding new disc of Brahms' Opp. 8 and 101 piano trios, I discovered another reason for polishing up the classics: It promotes the learning of this great music. I've had the Brahms trios sitting around for years but haven't listened to them closely. A new disc gives one reason to get acquainted bit by bit.

While Brahms did revise it later, Op. 8 retains his youthful zeal for the basic elements of harmony. Pianist Jon Klibonoff's weighty attack on the potent reoccurring cadence in the first movement delivers this enthusiasm with an apt exclamation point. Brahms, the famously staid one, was punch-drunk on the music here, and Trio Solisti's fervent playing brings this out.

Written at the other end of his compositional life, Op. 101 is concise and a bit grizzled. The three play it stately but with underlying lyricism and buoyancy; Brahms had plenty of emotion and fire left. Throughout the disc, the ensemble is excellent. Maria Bachmann, violin, and Alexis Pia Gerlach, cello, play with mahogany timbre but not a saccharine richness. - Andrew Druckenbrod, June 16, 2005

Fan Mail

"The best! Easily beats Rubeinstein!" - Fred K, Placerville CO

"Great performances, well recorded" - Martin L, Huntington NY

"Charming, meaningful sound" - Erwin S, Yellow Grass, SK

"The best! (Easily beats Rubenstein!) - Fred K, Placerville, CO, USA