Trio con Brio Copenhagen

“the worthy successors of the legendary Beaux-Arts Trio”

Deluged with plaudits for its earlier recordings, this ensemble comes with a reputation to live up to — and doesn't disappoint. From the first note, the Trio con Brio exudes class. But what signals such a high level of playing from the outset? Initially, in this very warm recording, one notices the blending The textures are miraculously clear and the often thick piano writing in Tchaikovsky's Trio is adeptly handled to allow the strings to shine through. The violinist and cellist are sisters, and seem to have that unquantifiable sense of empathy that makes for absolutely unified bowing and gesture. Then there is a fine sense of structure, and nuance within phrases. Colour and contrast are always important in the second-movement variations of the Tchaikovsky —particular highlights being the fifth variation, which boasts golden-hued lilting melodic conversation, and the fugue in the eighth, where the ensemble brings great clarity to the intricate contrapuntal dialogues. Smetana's Trio is full of high-voltage drama and gesture, which admirably suit the vernacular of this ensemble. Immediately we are off to a passionate start. But there are also wonderful moments of repose, for example where the cellist delivers a gloriously reflective melody. Likewise, the finale is both explosive and exquisitely intimate — aspects that this performance delivers with compelling panache. JOANNE TALBOT SMETANA Piano Trio in G minor op.15 TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Trio in A minor op.50 Trio con Brio Copenhagen ORCHID ORC 100051

THERE ARE ORDINARY THURSDAY EVENING CONCERTS. AND THEN THERE ARE CONCERTS LIKE YESTERDAY ..."Then there are the special concerts and this week we experienced one of them. With a conductor the audience loves and a programme which offered not only some of the 19th century's great classics and which were beautifully bound together. And which even included a wonderful premiere." "Has Danish composer Bent Sørensen listened to the dismal sounds from the music in "Taxi DRiver"? Or is it because the composer has just moved from the countryside into the city of Copenhagen, that the orchestra delivered a dystopian city background, while his romantic ghostly music materialised between the three soloists? That one cannot know. But the echos and descending glissandi, which are characteristic of Sørensen, lives in his new triple concerto liek an island of beauty in the middle of a giddy, grating world, which the music of beauty and stillness dreamingly seems detached from. The orchestra musicians let clubs sound against wooden blocks, whilst Trio con Brio played their important part of the concerto with brilliant energy. They have toured with Sørensen's trio Phatasmagoria, which they premiered in 2007, and they played the last movement as an encore. Because the hall just kept on applauding. Parts of the fuga in 'L'isola della cittá' reminded one, that it is Beethoven who has introduced the challenging combination of violin, cello, piano and orchestra with his triple concerto. But Bent Sørensen makes the combination work better. In fact flawless. At least in this performance. It made new contemporary music an experience for everybody who has a longing for beauty within. A longing which opens for contact with spirits of the past. A very, very fine evening. Thomas Michelsen

Grief and anguish unite these lyrically expressive trios. Tchaikovsky subtitled his “In memory of a great artist”, his friend and mentor Nikolai Rubinstein, while poor Smetana wrote his after the death from scarlet fever of his four-year-old daughter Bedřiška. But that’s where their similarity ends. Tchaikovsky’s trio is monumental, unique in the repertoire; Trio con Brio Copenhagen scale its heights with the verve their name suggests, pianist Jens Elvekjaer sparkling in the brilliant set of 11 variations central to the piece. In contrast, the Smetana is brief but deeply heartfelt, the beauty of its bleak majesty perfectly captured by the Danish players. Recommended. Stephen Pritchard

Trio con Brio Copenhagen, formed by the Korean sisters Soo-Jin Hong and Soo-Kyung Hong and the Danish pianist Jens Elvekjaer, is clearly a well greased machine, arching and swaying in perfect harmony with each other and the music. Their Wigmore Hall recital was a night of dramatic and unearthly compositions spanning the years 1808 to 2007. With music and performers at this level, chamber music doesn't get much more absorbing. It's not often said of such a giant, but Beethoven's contribution was more than slightly put in the shade by the sheer daring and spark of the other three works. The programme started with the old master's Ghost Trio, which sets off in the wrong gear and, from the racing, jagged first few bars, the performers have to make a swift adjustment in order to find themselves on the right road, rocky as that is. The music swelled and receded in typically turbulent bursts, more tranquil sections drawing honest and emotive cello playing from Soo-Kyung Hong, with no frills or ostentation. As with any single movement of Beethoven there is never only one frame of mind contained in the music and there were little storms brewing which continued into the chirruping 3rd movement. What happened next robbed my memory of any more details than that. Shostakovich's Piano Trio no. 2 begins with an unbearably plaintive call from the cello, performed intensely and instantly creating a chilling atmosphere. The soaring 'harmonic' notes (i.e. the fingers only lightly touching the strings at certain points, producing a higher pitch than should seem possible) from the cello are taken up by the violin (this time without harmonics, making the violin sound oddly lower than the cello) and then on to the piano in a disconcerting mini-fugue. This kind of music could have continued in the same vein all night as far as I was concerned, but it eventually veered onto a chugging path that steadily grew until the volume suddenly plummeted as the music continued in a stunning near-silence. There is a good deal of head-nodding in the audience as Shostakovich introduces some snazzy, aggressive folk music with an occasional nagging premonition of his own eighth string quartet (written 16 years later). This was the real ghost of the evening. There were as many dynamic swoops here as in the Beethoven piece, Trio con Brio playing again with deadly focus and agility. The final movement started with booming, chunky chords on the piano, gradually being replaced by a sinister pizzicato section sounding like a tiptoeing villain. The whole thing concluded with the violin finally getting a chance to haunt us with its own searing harmonics. After the interval there was a new piece. It was sensational. Written by Bent Sorensen in 2007 and dedicated to Trio con Brio, Phantasmagoria started with what sounded like urgent and exotic bird-calls from the violin and cello bursting out in all directions. Using sliding glissando effects, tiny near-melodies appeared only to subtly vanish into thin air. Every sort of unusual technique is used by the strings, but it manages to avoid sounding like "a hundred and one ways to use a violin" manual, maybe because the aim is to explore individual sounds as sounds rather than to tease the audience with quirky novelties. There aren't really any musical lines going on little journeys here, more like music reflecting on itself in both senses of the phrase. It seemed likely, but thankfully Sorensen wasn't tempted to have the pianist reach inside the piano to create those all too familiar "ethereal" effects; there was too much good taste in evidence for that. This was a sensitively constructed collection of gorgeous little morsels. The work ended with a beautiful (though it probably only lasted four seconds) bit of singing by one of the two string players over the closing meanderings of the piano. Again, a wonderfully judged bit of delicacy. Ravel's Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello, the final piece, was ravishing from the very first chord. This is sublime music that lifts you like sunlight. Though the instruments share the same musical material, the same tunes, each player projects the music as if it were completely individual to themselves. Jens Elvekjaer's piano tone (here as elsewhere) was glimmering in the tender passages and powerful in the many dramatic twists of Ravel's mind. Unlike Shostakovich, Ravel is not hell-bent on convincing us he has an individual musical language; he doesn't need to because the ideas are pouring out of him so naturally and joyfully. There was no real interpretive slant on this or any other work in the programme. Trio con Brio are not visionaries, but they recognise that with music so abundantly rich you don't need to reinvent it to have it radiate with freshness. Nice little Mendelssohn encore, too. By Stephen Crowe

"Sisters violinist Soo-Jin Hong and cellist Soo-Kyung Hong, and pianist Jens Elvekjaer perform with uncommon fluidity and polish, phrasing with unanimity and playing with sensitivity. The group´s lucid elegance is well suited to Ravel´s Piano Trio. The opening Modere is especially well done, capturing the brooding ruminative expression, with wonderfully languorous violin playing by Soo-Jin Hong. The clarity and spotless articulation of the sisters´ string playing is striking even under pressure in the explosive concluding section. The trio´s airtight ensemble and natural pacing show a firm grasp of Ravel´s structure and style, with the ensuing Pantoum tossed off with the right lightly tripping vivacity. . . their spacious eloquent playing is faultless, with hushed, evocative keyboard work by Elvekjaer at the coda. The performance is rounded off with a sparkling and energized Anime, blending polish and fizzing energy in fine order . . . the Ravel and Bloch performances can compete with the best available. The Trio con Brio Copenhagen is clearly a superb, greatly gifted chamber group, and I look forward to future encounters.”

Trio con Brio's new release is on the small label CDklassisk, but it must belong to one of the most important releases in the 200-year anniversary of Mendelssohn's birth. The tempo is high everywhere, but it does not compromise the details in the beautiful flowing music. Mendelssohn's music sounds as though it plays itself in simple phrases, which follow each other as development or comment, and it is the convincing simplicity which gives the recording its great force and importance. Five Hearts Henrik Friis

….. The Trio con Brio Copenhagen emerged a few years ago already the perfect players. But the three stars kept on working, bringing the three corners ever closer together, polishing their valuable crystal into something even greater: pure art. Their reading of Mendelssohn’s piano trios is certainly fantastic. Don’t be fooled by the fact that it was released by the best-kept secret Copenhagen record company of them all, because the soul of the romantic period warms more than just the cockles of our hearts. Moreover, Jens Elvekjær from Denmark on the piano, his Korean wife on the cello and her sister on the violin are superbly capable. They play differently from their colleagues from recording history: slightly less breezily than the former Beaux Arts Trio. Slightly more together than Istomin, Rose and Stern. Do listen to their new CD or catch one of the many concerts they’re giving these days. Such as tomorrow’s concert at the Tivoli Concert Hall ... You’ll relish Soo-Jin’s slender violin playing, nod approvingly at Soo-Kyung’s cello as it generates ever increasing profundity, and admire Jens’s all-embracing piano ... Open your eyes and take in this unforgettable dissonance of black, green and turquoise. Open your ears and take in this perfect unity. Søren Schauser

A magnificent evening it was indeed…….try and find anyone able to play a Haydn work (G major, "Gypsy Trio") in such a way as if it were completely new: with meticulous sensitivity for the many fine details and wonderful ideas, all too often flamboyantly overrun, for the incisive figurative articulation, lightness, elasticity and expressive variety. …. All musical sequences profit from an essential though unobtrusively differentiated manner of making music – practically bringing the tones to "speak". This approach rendered Mendelssohn's 2nd Piano Trio (c minor) a powerful experience of elfin lightness, was emphatic and passionate, full of melodic sweetness and ebullient vitality. All of this and more is already compositionally incorporated in Dvorak's renowned "Dumky" Trio: six movements based on the Ukrainian Dumka, lucid and to some extent brusquely contrasting. This work represents a particularly prickly proving grounds. By EKKEHARD OCHS

Trio con Brio will have their debut at Carnegie Hall in New York next month. Sunday they presented the tour program in Copenhagen and thereby cemented the trio’s candidacy for one of this year best Danish chamber music ensembles. It seemed that there was not the smallest detail in the four trios by Haydn, Bent Sørensen, Maurice Ravel and Brahms that had not been minutely rehearsed and put into place in the balance between the instrument as well as in the overall musical structure in the concert program which was presented Sunday night in Mogens Dahl Concert Hall, Copenhagen. The family business of husband, wife and sister-in-law who have been playing together for ten years – all of them individually excellent musicians – play together with a robust basis and eager-to-tell combined with a very high level of thorough preparation. The result is a music that resonates both grand and transparent. The music is powerful and captivating and at the same time full of refinement and points you never noticed before in otherwise well known movements.

Even the premiere of the Swedish nestor Sven-David Sandström's six pieces for piano trio and orchestra created thundering applause. New compositions normally do not awake spontaneous enthusiasm, but the combination of Trio con Brio's highly energetic and yet precise interpretation, friendly romantic melodies and emotional tableaus is helpful for Järvi to make contemporary music easy to grasp. The first three pieces changed between quiet solo string voices of quite ordinary highly romantic passion, pumping percussion and aggressive passages. The fourth piece was charactarised by soft bowings and reminded of perfumed background music to a film with a sentimental story. Fifth piece was short and intense, while the ending postlude was the most beautiful and clearest part expressed in glass clear timbre... Three solo parts were played with impressive intensity and reckless consistency. Not many can deliver a complex premiere with the same attitude as in a thoroughly rehearsed mainstream repertoire piece. This trio seems to be able to create a great experience out of everything.

Piano Trios Nos 1 & 2 Trio Con Brio Copenhagen The Music: Mendelssohn's penchant for rippling piano figurations and espressivo string writing goes into overdrive in two of his greatest chamber masterpieces. The Performances: Not since the famous coupling by Isaac Stern and friends for CBS (now Sony, SMK 64519) have Mendelssohn's two piano trios been performed with such emotional intensity on disc. If anything the Trio Con Brio goes one better with playing that caresses the lower end of the dynamic spectrum as much as it exalts in the music's climaxes. Every phrase soars and pulsates with the excitement of a fresh discovery as the Copenhagen players go the full distance with playing of skin-rippling sensitivity, enhanced by engineering of velvet glove radiance. The Verdict: Sensational playing from Korean sisters Soo-Jin Hong and Soo-Kyung Hong and Danish piano wizard Jens Elvekjaer makes this my chamber disc of 2011. Try their outstanding debut recording of trios by Ravel, Dvorák and Bloch (Azica, ACD-71240). JULIAN HAYLOCK

.. The Trio con Brio Copenhagen emerged a few years ago already the perfect players. But the three stars kept on working, bringing the three corners ever closer together, polishing their valuable crystal into something even greater: pure art. Their reading of Mendelssohns piano trios is certainly fantastic. Dont be fooled by the fact that it was released by the best-kept secret Copenhagen record company of them all, because the soul of the romantic period warms more than just the cockles of our hearts. Moreover, Jens Elvekjær from Denmark on the piano, his Korean wife on the cello and her sister on the violin are superbly capable. They play differently from their colleagues from recording history: slightly less breezily than the former Beaux Arts Trio. Slightly more together than Istomin, Rose and Stern. Do listen to their new CD or catch one of the many concerts theyre giving these days. Such as tomorrows concert at the Tivoli Concert Hall ... Youll relish Soo-Jins slender violin playing, nod approvingly at Soo-Kyungs cello as it generates ever increasing profundity, and admire Jenss all-embracing piano ... Open your eyes and take in this unforgettable dissonance of black, green and turquoise. Open your ears and take in this perfect unity. Søren Schauser

. . . an amazingly generous concert that deserved an even larger audience than the packed hall could hold.

The program opened with Spell by Per Nørgård (b. 1932), the dean of Danish composers with seven symphonies, three concerti, operas, and numerous smaller works  more than 400 to date. Spell was composed in 1973 and is based on a solo keyboard piece named Turn, with a weaving in of clarinet and cello; they played the arrangement for violin trio. The piece is based on Nørgårds infinity series, an algorithmic method of generating melodies from various mathematical rules so the result is endless and self-referential. Elvekjaer explained in a brief introductory comment that the structure of the piece was inspired by Quantum Mechanics, with a slow, steady drip from the piano interacting with and gaining energy from the other instruments, exciting it into higher quantum states. The piece, he said, ends with chaos leading to a big bang, followed by expansion and dispersal. Be that as it may, one does not need the mathematics or the quantum imagery to enjoy the music: the piece was both lyrical and haunting, progressing by bringing together the threads being spun by the three instruments into more complex, unified and dramatic playing. The Trio played with marvelous balance and interweaving of voice at all dynamic levels, playing with total unity while maintaining their individual characters throughout. Spell ended with the voices evaporating into nothingness and a long frozen silence. Quantum uncertainty carried into the performance of the Brahms Piano Trio in C minor, op. 101. It was almost a post-modern reading without a meta-narrative  Kierkegaardian, one might say, leaving more questions than answers. It was disconcerting at the time, but left one feeling that dark layers of varnish had been removed to reveal a totally different Brahms. As with the late Beethoven, this late Brahms chamber work seems to distill things down to their essence. The first movement Allegro in this reading opened with a violent, dramatic four-note upward sweep, full of energy, followed by a soft and sweet second theme and an episodic reading of the development. The Presto was full of questioning, using tempo to create a feeling of suspense and terse disquiet, while the Andante started as a sparkling homage to Mendelssohn and ended with a dialogue between the piano trying to maintain the tender feeling and the strings evoking waves of foreboding, ending in uncertainty. The finale, using the same four-note motif that pervades all of the movements, was even more forceful and assertive than the first movement, but with a bold twist. The piano tried to provide a master narrative but was constantly undermined by the strings, producing a dark and mournful foreboding that culminated with an assertive statement of deep uncertainty from the piano. The performance was exciting, provocative and unsettling, a disquieting but valuable experience. The second half of the program was the Mendelssohn Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 66, and it was a total delight in every way, from start to finish. The playing was absolutely gorgeous, with sound quality Ive never heard before from a piano trio, subtle and supple, dramatic contrasts from fiery to languorous, a sweet flute-like purity from Soo-Jins violin, Soo-Kyungs dark brooding and moody cello, and Elvekjaers piano either leading a headlong rush or dramatically slowing the tempo to hold onto the tender moments. The opening Allegro, energetic and fiery, was turbulent and dramatic, starting with an upward struggle from the piano followed by a swift downward tumble; this restless up-and-down pattern is common to all three themes throughout the entire movement. The second movement, Andante, was played with infinite tenderness, as if trying to slow time to hold on to what is most precious. It was followed by a swift and nimble Scherzo quasi presto, at the same time delicate and steely, played with a whirlwind sense of mischief, strange textures from cello and violin providing freshness and edginess. Most delightful. The finale, Allegro Appasionato, started with a great yearning cello theme, taken up by assertive piano, unfolding with a piercing purity from violin, dark clouds from cello and sparkle from piano, with moments of magnificent density. The chorale theme eventually enveloped all, providing a vision of peace, embraced and accepted, but in this reading suffused with exploration and questioning. In response to a well-deserved ovation, they played a hauntingly beautiful and sensitive rendition of the Elegia third movement from Arenskys D-minor Piano Trio. By Leon Golub

"The playing was absolutely gorgeous, with sound quality Ive never heard before from a piano trio, subtle and supple, dramatic contrasts from fiery to languorous, a sweet flute-like purity from Soo-Jins violin, Soo-Kyungs dark brooding and moody cello, and Elvekjaers piano either leading a headlong rush or dramatically slowing the tempo . . . infinite tenderness . . . freshness and edginess . . . moments of magnificent density . . . [a] reading suffused with exploration and questioning."

. . a memorable performance . . . The award-winning group, based in Denmark, played with intensity, virtuosic skill and a coherent interpretative arc that unified each work's musical content . . . The musicians' organic tonal blend and homogenous interpretative efforts generated a fascination that swept listeners away . . . 

It was difficult to imagine any of the works played any better . . .profound musicianship . . . a magical new world of sensuous sound . . . so full of passion that it held you enthralled from beginning to end . . . The young musicians mingled with members of the audience in the lobby after the concert and seemed as charming off stage as on.