Press

16 Mar 2024 | BBC Music Magazine

The Trio’s demonic energy almost takes your breath away

Chamber Choice of the Month & double 5-star review in BBC Music Magazine

PERFORMANCE ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

RECORDING ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Admirers of Weinberg’s 1945 Piano Trio are almost spoilt for choice when it comes to fine recordings of this powerful work. Many of the current front-runners come from the likes of violinists Gidon Kremer and Linus Roth, who have invested a great deal of energy in attempting to place the composer more firmly in our musical consciousness.

Their endeavours have surely paid dividends with this warmly recorded release, which places the work not in the obvious context of Russian, Soviet or Polish repertory, but in tandem with one of the greatest Austro-German chamber works of the 19th century. The pairing of trios by such seemingly disparate figures as Weinberg and Schubert, however, reveals far more connections between the two composers than might have been imagined.

Yes, Weinberg’s work is much bleaker, exploring a bewildering range of emotions from the wild unfettered frenzy of the second movement scherzo to the deeply unsettled, almost schizophrenic changes of mood in the Finale. But there are also extremely dark elements in the Schubert, not least in the death-ridden climax of the slow movement.

Trio con Brio deliver Weinberg’s music with tremendous emotional commitment and insight. The demonic energy they conjure up in the scherzo almost takes your breath away, as does their ability to convey mournful introspection in the more reflective moments. The Schubert requires different interpretative skills, such as grace and elegance as well as a subtlety and variety of tonal colouring in balancing the three instruments – qualities which are evident throughout every bar in this outstanding performance.

www.classical-music.com

16 Mar 2024 | Politiken

With the album ‘The Passenger’, Trio con Brio marks that they belong to the top of the world’s elite when it comes to today’s classical chamber music

♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

Man ved, man er blevet ældre, når man har fulgt nogen siden fødslen, og de fylder 25. Drejer det sig om en, der er vokset fra baby til verdenssucces, bliver man samtidig lidt umotiveret stolt.

Det er den danske trio, der til efternavn kalder sig con Brio, hvilket er klassisk musikslang for noget så dansk som ’med godt humør’.Trio con Brio er dansk og international på samme tid. To søstre kom fra Sydkorea og endte med at slå sig ned i Danmark, hvor den ene giftede sig med en talentfuld dansk pianist. Søstrene spillede violin og cello.

I dag er danske klassiskfans på fornavn med søstrene Soo-Jin og Soo-Kyung Hong. De sidder på de to ansvarsfulde pladser i DR Symfoniorkestret som koncertmestre for hver deres strygergruppe.

Pianisten Jens Elvekjær er professor på Det Kongelige Danske Musikkonservatorium, og Trio con Brio, som de tre har dannet, og som de siden 1999 har spillet utallige koncerter med verden over og lavet en lang stribe album med, fylder altså rundt. Nu som erklæret efterfølger til 1900-tallets nok bedste trio, Beaux Arts Trio, ifølge franske Diápason.

De fejrer det med deres nye album, hvor der er smæk på udtryk og dissonanser i Mieczyslaw Weinbergs trio i a-mol. Skrevet, da den polsk-jødiske komponist var netop 25 år.

Holocaust og en svensk melodi

Trioen er skrevet i 1945 i Moskva, hvortil Weinberg flygtede fra nazisterne.

De inderlige melodier, trioen også rummer, taler om sjælelige dybder hos en rigtig god, ikke så kendt komponist, hvis opera ’Passageren’ er en barsk historie om, hvad det gør ved os mennesker, når vi mishandler hinanden.

Weinbergs trio taler lige så klart som operaen, der for små seks år siden kunne opleves på Den Jyske Opera. Bare uden ord. Til gengæld er her jødisk klezmer, sjostakovitjsk voldsomhed og en rørende vals til eftertanke.

Weinberg har givet titlen på albummet, der hedder ’The Passenger’. Trio con Brio har sat hans trio sammen med den sidste af de to legendariske klavertrioer, den unge Franz Schubert skrev, inden han døde, blot 31 år gammel.

Schuberts trioer for violin, cello og klaver er perler i den klassiske musiklitteratur, som ikke kan prissættes. Var man ikke vant til at omgås den slags, ville man tage nervøst på dem.

Men Trio con Brio er for længst blevet stjerner, og de tager med ultimativ sikkerhed på Schuberts noder.

Det går stærkt, men det er præcist. Fuldt af overskud, dybde, vemod og melodi, som liedkomponisten Schubert var en mester i.

At der faktisk gemte sig en svensk folkemelodi i denne musik, anede jeg ikke. Det ved jeg nu, fordi jeg har læst noterne til et album, der på ekstremt overbevisende måde bekræfter, at vi i Danmark har en international toptrio.

Tillykke til Trio con Brio – og til os!

politiken.dk

16 Mar 2024 | Pizzicato

Spannung bis in die Haarspitzen | Tension right down to the hair tips

Supersonic Award of Pizzicato

Spannung bis in die Haarspitzen | Tension right down to the hair tips

The Passenger: The title of the album refers to an opera by Mieczyslaw Weinberg, but also draws parallels between Weinberg and Schubert: their arduous, unhappy journey through life. After listening to this album, one can almost understand what such a journey feels like. The tension, intensity and emotionality that the Trio con Brio invests in both works is hard to beat.

Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s Piano Trio is almost disturbing in this powerful, almost biting interpretation with its hammering rhythms. The relentless motor skills suggest the mental and physical exhaustion of the three musicians, an exhaustion to the point of self-abandonment that reflects the turmoil and tension of this music. In the poem, it is the shattering despondency and hopelessness that the gripping cello singing so impressively evokes. This is followed by the Finale with the merciless march of life, of fate.

The fateful wandering through life, at the end of which is death: It is also present in Schubert’s Second Piano Trio, in every note, every melody, every phrase. The Trio con Brio makes no compromises, relentlessly exposing the fine line between the joys and sorrows of life. The first movement fascinates with its dense, gripping mood, interspersed with rhythmic accents against the beat: blows of fate. The cello’s lament in the second movement is reminiscent of Winterreise, while the scherzo is characterized by an almost feigned playfulness and cheerfulness. In the Finale, the three musicians from Copenhagen once again underscore life’s constant oscillation between highs and lows with a tense intimacy and expressive emotionality.

www.pizzicato.lu

16 Mar 2024 | Dagbladet Information

Trio con Brio has made it to a hallmark to explore the limits of intensity, in the almost inaudible music up to the most mind-blowing

…Trio con Brio has made it to a hallmark to explore the limits of intensity, in the almost inaudible music up to the most mind-blowing…

…Trio con Brio har gjort det til et adelsmærke at udforske intensitetens grænser, i den næsten uhørlige musik frem til den mest sindsoprivende…

www.information.dk

16 Mar 2024 | Magasinet Klassisk

Schubert at his best. Trio con Brio at their best

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“… The three musicians go deep into all the strings they have to play on, and every note and chord gets significance and unfolds a rarely heard strength… Weinberg captures the consequences of the horrors of war so precisely that it makes me want to cry… Schubert at his best. Trio con Brio at their best.”

klassisk.org

07 Nov 2023 | Aachener Zeitung l by Thomas Beaujean and Rauke Xenia Bornefeld

A Concert of Superlatives

…The chamber music series Accordate experienced a brilliant start to the new season in the well-filled Coronation Hall with the deeply impressive performance by the Trio con Brio Copenhagen. The name of the formation seems to say it all, as the violinist Soo-Jin Hong, the cellist Soo-Kyung Hong and the pianist Jens Elvekjaer played with an intensity of tone and expression that literally took the audience’s breath away… This type of music-making reaches its climax in the interpretation of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Trio in E minor op. 67… the Trio con Brio created all of these expressive characters with an intensity, a physical and psychological commitment and an inner compassion that ultimately leads to mental exhaustion the musicians seemed to lead… It was a concert of superlatives that left a deep impression on the audience.

www.aachener-zeitung.de