24 Jun 2020 | Scherzo | by Pablo L. Rodríguez
20 Mar 2020 | Díapason | by Jean-Michel Molkhou
We can now see the Trio con Brio as the worthy successors of the legendary Beaux-Arts Trio. That says it all!
(Photo Nikolaj Lund)
15 Mar 2020 | Politiken | by Thomas Michelsen
…It was thought-provoking and touching to hear Trio con Brio playing music from the time of the Spanish flu at the Thursday concert at P2. There is something touching about the situation: Three musicians giving a concert in a huge, empty concert hall (due to the Covid-19 pandemic). Because they just so much want to play…
(Photo Nissen Mads)
02 Sep 2019 | Gramophone | by Richard Bratby
…three players moving forward together into a strange and wonderful new world…
(Photo Nikolaj Lund)
01 Sep 2019 | The Strad | by Peter Quantrill
Recorded as if from above, with each member accorded their own space, Trio con Brio Copenhagen captures Beethoven as a Romantic in the making from the first bars of op.1 no.3. Its string-playing sisters deploy some discreet portamento and finely graded vibrato without recourse to the exaggeration that occasionally mars the more storied Faust/Queyras/Melnikov recordings on Harmonia Mundi. The expansive first movement gathers intensity during its development section and puts on the armour of light that would be worn to such revolutionary effect five years later in the First Symphony. I like the minuet’s teasing accents and Jens Elvekjaer’s pearly right-hand flourishes – he’s playing a modern grand, but you could confuse it for a drawing-room fortepiano in the Mendelssohnian trio. The finale fairly leaps out of the blocks: here is the sound of the 18th century straining at the seams.
Considered purely as trio playing, the ‘Archduke’ enjoys no less sophisticated, stylistically up-to-date execution: there is no obvious leader in an ensemble of such alert and creative musicians. I miss, however, a sense of the work’s scale, notwithstanding generous tempos in the first three movements which climax in a deeply felt Andante cantabile. Here, perhaps, the recording keeps us at arm’s length, emphasising the Trio’s care over beautifully finished details of texture rather than taking in broader horizons. For those, turn to Oistrakh and friends – but for Beethoven con brio, look no further.
(Photo Nikolaj Lund)
19 Aug 2019 | Kristeligt Dagblad | by Peter Dürrfeld
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
… Trio con Brio Copenhagen confirms their world class to the fullest with this recording, and I cannot imagine a better upbeat to the Beethoven Year 2020…
(Photo Nikolaj Lund)