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)
16 Aug 2019 | Klassik Heute | by Stefan Pieper
Artistic quality 10 out of 10
Sound quality 10 out of 10
Overall impression 10 out of 10
… Eine exzeptionelle Klangkultur von hohem Wiedererkennungswert gepaart mit vorbildlicher Kreativität bei der Vermittlung … Man kann diese Einspielung durch all dies, aber ebenso durch die hervorragende, luftig transparente Aufnahmequalität ohne weiteres als Referenz betrachten!
(Photo Nikolaj Lund)
14 Jul 2019 | El País | by Luis Gago
… Since they played masterfully the last movement of the Trio op. 15 of Smetana in the inaugural concert left an unbeatable impression, corroborated in the conceptually very difficult Trio op. 70 no. 1 of Beethoven…everything they play is at the highest technical and expressive level…
(Photo Nikolaj Lund)