The complete edition of Beethoven's works for piano trio is rounded out with this release of the fifth volume, also the high point of the series: the Triple Concerto, recorded here with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, is not a chamber music work, but a concerto for piano trio and orchestra that posed special challenges to the composer due to the presence of three soloists. The work's originality lies in the art of balancing the detail of chamber music with orchestral "al fresco." The concerto can be discovered alongside the skillfully-written Kakadu Variations, op. 121a, with their folk-like character, a work probably composed in 1809. The Piano Trio WoO 38 was composed in 1790/91 and is thus dating from Beethoven's Bonn period - an early stage of his chamber music compositions. During his lifetime the work remained unpublished. The Swiss Piano Trio concludes it's journey through the cosmos of Beethoven's piano trio works with his "final word" in the genre, the Allegretto, WoO 39 dating from 1812. As brief as it is striking, it's lyrical, hovering atmosphere already anticipates Beethoven's late works.

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948) focused on instrumental music at the beginning and towards the end of a career that was otherwise largely devoted to opera. The two trios for violin, cello and piano are early works, written at the time he was studying in Munich, or shortly afterwards. The first Trio in D major dates back to 1896, was premiered at the Tonk�nstlerverein in Stuttgart in September of that same year and published as Op.5 in 1902 by Leuckart in Leipzig. The four movements of Op.5 abound in richly embroidered, Brahmsian melodies and impassioned statements and developments, free of the naivety that is often a feature of early works. That said, they do embody a certain innocence, a degree of gentleness, even a lightness of spirit that sets them apart from their composer's study of German models with teachers such as the organist Joseph Rheinberger. Parts of the Op.7 Trio may in fact have been written before Op.5, but the expression of the three-movement work as a whole is more individual, dominated as it is by a huge opening movement (almost 20 minutes in length), and often colored by a bitter chromaticism that Wolf-Ferrari would later relinquish in favor of a more light-hearted and lyrical idiom. Here is a technically gifted young composer stretching his creative muscles - and for all the breadth of expression, his writing for the notoriously tricky combination of instruments is notably sympathetic, allowing the two string instruments to flourish without being overwhelmed by the piano. This new studio album is the second recording of Trio Arch� for Brilliant Classics after their well-received debut of trios by another Italian composer, now even less familiar than Wolf-Ferrari, Marco Enrico Bossi. Both albums make a ready appeal to all those listeners who travel the musical byways of late Romanticism.

Continuing Avie’s acclaimed and influential series of recordings of the music of Austrian émigré Hans Gal, this latest release brings together two of today’s most eminent Gal interpreters, Sarah Beth Briggs and Kenneth Woods with violin virtuoso David Juritz for a recording of Gal’ breathtakingly lyrical Piano Trio in E major and his witty Variations on a Popular Viennese Tune. Gal’s music and destiny was shaped by war and political upheaval, as was that of Dmitri Shostakovich, whose Piano Trio in E minor, one of the monuments of 20th century chamber music, is a harrowing souvenir of the times in which it was written. “Beautifully poised, enchanting accounts.” (Gramophone) “Briggs is an artist with prowess and personality… [her] infectious pianism is impossible to resist.” (MusicWeb Inernational) “Woods holds his own against such wonders as Sawallisch, Celibidache, Giulini and immediately becomes a favorite for this delectable work.” (Classical Source) “Refreshingly spontaneous.” (BBC Music Magazine)

Although Polish-born virtuoso and composer Karol Jozef Lipinski embraced the innovations of Paganini and other 19th century virtuosos, he disdained 'empty' technique devoid of musical depth, preferring the artistic ethos of Spohr, Tartini and Viotti. Described as 'lyrical Slavic folk tunes with elements of the ballad,' the expertly crafted G minor and A major String Trios are notable for their warmly expressive themes to go along with the bravura runs and doublestopping heard in the primo violin part. Adam Roszkowski plays first violin with the National Orchestra of Belgium. As a soloist he has performed with the Gorzow Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bialystok Philharmonic Orchestra, the Camerata dll'arte Chamber Orchestra and the Carloforte Festival Orchestra. Violinist Voytek Proniewicz made his solo debut with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra in 2005. Since then he has appeared with the philharmonic orchestras of Wroclaw Dzczecin, Rzeszow, Kielce, and Gorzow, as well as the Sinfonia luventus Orchestra and the Sinfonia Viva Orchestra. Polish cellist Jan Roszkowski is a laureate of the 27th National Chamber Music Competition in Warsaw. He completed a master's degree in music performance at the Manhattan School of Music in New York.

Hal�r Trio is an ensemble based on the outstanding Spanish violinist Eduardo Garc�a Salas. For years, the main goal of the ensemble has been to revive the character of the outstanding Czech violinist Karel Hal�r (1859 - 1909), who was an important personality in the musical life of the late nineteenth century. Hal�r himself played regularly in a piano trio, so it is only fitting that the ensemble aiming to revive his legacy plays in such a formation. For this release, the ensemble has recorded the piano trio from Enrique Granados (Piano Trio in C Major, Op. 50) and Anton�n Dvor�k�s Piano Trio in F minor Op 65. The Hal�r Trio is cellist Jana Podolska, pianist Vaclav Macha, and violinist Eduardo Garcia Salas.

It is clear and undisputed that the Sonatas belong to the outstanding clarinet music-literature. Brahms succeeds in his two “Sister Sonatas” to show the full sonority of the woodwind instrument while treating the piano as an accompaniment, but equal chamber music partner. Clarinet and piano always stay together – in support and in dialogue. The composition in all of these works can be experienced as a contribution to any understanding of expression and inter-musical relationships: this becomes clear on an inter-musical level of the composition and on an inter-humane level of the interpreters. It is especially this aspect which makes Brahms still experienceable in performance and interpretable today. In this ‘performativity’, the works experience their raison d’être; and in their performance, the intimate dialogue of friendship becomes reality. It is hard to find such a well-balanced and creative union between three artists, whose solo careers speak for themselves, but whose collaboration evoke the true essence of music-making. The most notable element perhaps, which brings Pablo Barragan, Juan P. Floristan, and Andrei Ionita together is their common vision of the communicational power of chamber music, its capacity to inspire and transform and its importance for their professional and personal development.

The Czechoslovak trio Trio Clavio was established in 2013 with the help of Polish clarinetist and conductor Jakub Bokun. Since it's successful debut at the Clarimania Festival in Wroclaw, Poland, the ensemble has been performing across Europe. This chamber ensemble put together three distinct musical personalities- pianist Lucie Soutorova Valcova, violinist Lucia Fulka Kopsova, and clarinetist Jana Cernohouzova. All three musicians have Yamaha scholarships and all have performed as soloists or orchestra members with the South Czech Philharmonic, Moravian Philharmonic, Brno Philharmonic, and many others. Trio Clavio was awarded first prize in a competition in Vidnava in 2014, and in 2016 they were awarded first and fourth prize at the International Competition of Chamber Ensebles in Padova Italy. This release features trio works by canon composers Igor Stravinsky and Bela Bartok, as well as works by modern composers like Juraj Filas and Sylvie Bodorova, who wrote these works specifically for Trio Clavio.

Schubert's great E flat major trio had its first performance on December 26, 1827 at a concert in the Musikverein with the legendary violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh, who had given first performances of Beethoven’s five last string quartets earlier in the decade. Trio Vitruvi returns to Schubert's gem, giving us the original (longer) version of the score in an impassioned reading. Niklas Walentin, Alexander McKenzie, and Jacob la Cour have performed critically acclaimed concerts in Denmark, China, Russia, France, Ausria, Portugal, Belarus, and Germany in the most beautiful and famous concert halls. They won both first prize and audience prize at the Danish National Radio’s Chamber Music Competition of 2014, and first prize at the Jurmala International Music Competition that same year. “The young Vitruvi Trio showed highest technical and musical qualities… I can recommend them everywhere.” (Adam Fischer)

Born in a town on the shore of Lake Garda, Marco Bossi has a foothold on the catalogue thanks to his organ music: he was born into a family of organists and studied and worked in northern Italian cities including Bologna and Milan before taking up a post as teacher of harmony and organ at the conservatoire in Naples. He made contributions to the Italian operatic traditions, which have largely been forgotten, but organists still play his sonatas and dramatic evocations of the Passion and the Transfiguration of Christ. With Giuseppe Martucci and Giovanni Sgambati, Bossi also led a revival of thenative tradition of chamber music, which had been neglected in Italy after the string quartets of Donizetti. This new recording of his piano trios joins Brilliant Classics albums of piano trios and string quartets of Martucci and string quartets and piano quartets of Sgambati. Both works are generously proportioned four-movement works in Classical form, the first of them dedicated to Martucci. The slow movements are especially novel: the Larghetto of the first is designated a dialogue, which unfolds in long, unwinding melodies; the Adagio of the Second is overtly elegiac in mood, though it is dedicated to German musician Georg Goehler, who outlived Bossi for almost 30 years; the career of the Italian musician came to a sudden and tragic end with his death by drowning in the mid-Atlantic, returning to Europe in February 1925 from a visit to New York. This album forms an engaging introduction to the impassioned idiom, too little known, of a significant figure in fin-de-siècle Italian music.

Ronnie's Trio

Vintage Christmas Trio is David Ian’s long-awaited full-length follow up to his debut success Vintage Christmas. His purest release to date, this album features instrumental-only jazz trio interpretations of Christmas favorites using the most minimal elements--highlighting Ian’s craft as pianist and arranger. David Ian’s delightful performances transport you to an era that birthed the most sentimental songs of this season. The opener, “Deck the Halls” welcomes in the Christmas spirit with a swinging trio. David Ian’s signature sound shines throughout the album as he transforms the often stately “Joy to the World” into a jazz/blues injected festivity and then carries the listener into a dreamier state with the ever-loved classic “White Christmas.” The lyrical bass solos of Jon Estes tastefully splash their way on numerous tracks supported by the clever drumwork of Josh Hunt, who together comprise a perfectly ornamental rhythm section. “We Three Kings” takes on a new form with a reflective mood; an unexpected arrangement of a Christmas classic, more forgotten in recent years. In “Silver Bells,” Ian masterfully and fluidly switches back and forth from swing to straight time. The close of the album is a solemn “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” stripped down to just piano and percussion. If you listen closely, your ears might catch the chirps of a winter bird complementing this moving musical performance.

Trio 65 ½ was the trio that won all the jazz-competitions in the mid 60’s and were “talk of the town”. The three incredibly talented musicians listened to their idol, the pianist Bill Evans’ LP Trio 64 and halfway through 1965 Ole Streenberg came up with the name: Trio 65 ½. Ib Lund Nielsen wrote notable songs such as Bit og Juleballade, which still is remembered by the attending guests at one of the first “Jazz I Reprisen”-events in Holte in 1967. They are all to be found on this new release and as Kenneth Knudsen says: “It hits me, how tight it was. Jens Jorn Gjeldsted Ole Streenberg and I were young, around 20 years old. And unexperienced. Ib Lund Nielsen was a bit older and with some experience from other groups. When we, quite randomly, met each other, it did not take long for us to realize that we shared a mutual pulse, a comfort – a faith, that the music stood by itself. It was new and weirdly wordless. We didn’t even know how special it was, because we were completely focused on creative development. And the problems and challenges that come with it. I myself was equally drawn towards fixing and tearing apart. But looking back, with so much experienced, so much played and heard, it’s clear to me, that this collaboration was the ‘approach to the music´. This feeling of approach that I think everyone experiences at some point – I hope."

What a fortunate circumstance! Although Johannes Brahms destroyed all his sketches, drafts, and early versions of many of his works, the Trio in B major op. 8 managed to survive his pyromaniac verdicts. A comparative study of the youthful and romantic first version and the tightly constructed late version of this masterpiece offers a most highly interesting insight into Brahms’s artistic development Thirty-five years later, however, he thoroughly revised it. Along with the Trio in C minor op. 101, the early version rounds off the Vienna Piano Trio’s complete recording of this great composer’s piano trios- now heard for the first time in full in the latest three-dimensional Super Audio quality. Here the Vienna Piano Trio is of course in its element. It is absolutely fascinating how these three full-blooded musicians convey the Viennese and Hungarian flair of these works. The high-resolution Super Audio album is also perfectly balanced and offers a crystal-clear stereo sound as well as a breathtaking listening experience in three-dimensional multichannel technology- musical pleasure representing the highest level!

The genesis of Rossini’s first full-scale opera Demetrio e Polibio is shrouded in speculation, but its initial intention as a ‘family opera’ for the tenor Domenico Mombelli, with roles for his daughters and a libretto by his wife seems clear. Its narrative of political turmoil, romance, kidnap, and the ultimate blessings of true love and unity is a prelude to subjects to which Rossini would frequently turn in future triumphs. The composer’s facility for melody and his genius for combining voices into the loveliest of duets is already much in evidence in this confident but rarely heard debut.

The specialist early-music ensemble Da Camera marks the 250th anniversary of Telemann’s death with this unique recording of original trio sonatas involving recorder and viol. These are among the greatest pieces Telemann ever composed. As he wrote in 1740: ‘how could I possibly remember everything I composed for strings and winds? I particularly devoted myself to the composing of trios… People even flattered me as having done my best work here.’ The musicians of Da Camera heartily agree. The ingenuity and variety of music, structures, and instrumental ensemble, combined with fascinating notes by the recorder player Emma Murphy, make this album a must-have for everyone, from Telemann’s many enthusiasts to those curious about early music.