Trio Con Brio

Bent Sørensen’s quietly spoken universe incorporates loneliness, nostalgia and a feeling of loss and leave leave-taking. Of the works on this album, his triple concerto, L’Isola della Città (2015), has a purity that makes it one of the composer’s most immediate and gripping orchestral works. His dramatic Second Symphony (2019) dives into the resonance of music’s classical history, where every sound is considered with the greatest care and refinement.

Trio con Brio Copenhagen returns to Orchid Classics with a triptych of Russian piano trios: two works by Shostakovich framing music by Arensky. These Russian composers lived through turning points in their country’s history. Arensky died in 1906, the year in which Shostakovich was born, and their output charts the trajectory of Russian and Soviet political and artistic history during those years. Arensky’s ardent Piano Trio No.1 was written in 1894, when Russian Romanticism was at its peak. Inspired by young love, the 17-year-old Shostakovich wrote his Piano Trio No.1 Poème in 1923 in Petrograd (St. Petersburg), finding expression for strong personal emotions via a musical language influenced by film scores.

Trio con Brio presents its third volume of Beethoven’s Piano Trios: electrifying performances of music which reveals the composer at the peak of his powers. Beethoven’s Op.1 Piano Trios began with two works sure to charm Viennese audiences, but in his Piano Trio Op.1, No.3 in C minor, featured on this album, we begin to hear the radical, uncompromising Beethoven in music of volcanic force, contrasted with a sublime slow movement. The ‘Archduke’ Trio, Op.97, marked Beethoven’s final public performance as a pianist, but was also a turning-point in his output, its warm-hued nature combining heavenly serenity with earthy joie de vivre. “Glowing reports hold true. The Trio con Brio Copenhagen clearly occupies a lofty perch in today’s musical scene.” Washington Post “From the first note, Trio con Brio exudes class… both explosive and exquisitely intimate – aspects that this performance delivers with compelling panache.”

Following a highly praised first installment, Trio con Brio Copenhagen continue their journey through the piano trios of Beethoven with Volume II of their twentieth anniversary cycle. On this recording the youthful Op.1 No.2 is coupled with the trio in E flat major, Op.70 No.2, an altogether more intimate work and one full of the composer’s natural warmth.

Trio con Brio Copenhagen returns to Orchid Classics with a triptych of Russian piano trios: two works by Shostakovich framing music by Arensky. These Russian composers lived through turning points in their country’s history. Arensky died in 1906, the year in which Shostakovich was born, and their output charts the trajectory of Russian and Soviet political and artistic history during those years. Arensky’s ardent Piano Trio No.1 was written in 1894, when Russian Romanticism was at its peak. Inspired by young love, the 17-year-old Shostakovich wrote his Piano Trio No.1.