Trio con Brio Copenhagen
Reviews
Trio Shines In Heiligendamm
OSTSEE-ZEITUNG, 18 September 2009
A magnificent evening it was indeed…….try and find anyone able to play a Haydn work (G major, "Gypsy Trio") in such a way as if it were completely new: with meticulous sensitivity for the many fine details and wonderful ideas, all too often flamboyantly overrun, for the incisive figurative articulation, lightness, elasticity and expressive variety. …. All musical sequences profit from an essential though unobtrusively differentiated manner of making music – practically bringing the tones to "speak". This approach rendered Mendelssohn's 2nd Piano Trio (c minor) a powerful experience of elfin lightness, was emphatic and passionate, full of melodic sweetness and ebullient vitality. All of this and more is already compositionally incorporated in Dvorak's renowned "Dumky" Trio: six movements based on the Ukrainian Dumka, lucid and to some extent brusquely contrasting. This work represents a particularly prickly proving grounds.
By EKKEHARD OCHS
Accomplished And Sensitive
New York Times, 5 August 2009
Trio con Brio Copenhagen, an award-winning ensemble consisting of the Danish pianist Jens Elvekjaer and two Korean sisters, the violinist Soo-Jin Hong and the cellist Soo-Kyung Hong. These accomplished and sensitive musicians gave a beautifully subdued performance of Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor. Mr. Elvekjaer brought exceptional grace and fluidity to the rippling runs in the piano.
Mostly Mozart Festival, Avery Fischer Hall at Lincoln Center
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI
Unique Performance
Nordkurier, 20 July 2009
..."For everyone, who were hoping for something familiar, there was Beethoven's Triple Concerto played by Trio con Brio Copenhagen. With so many dynamic contrasts, withouth struggles between the solo instrument for domincance, so elegant and gracious played by this trio is seldom heard. In addition the sisters Soo-Jin Hong and Soo-Kyung Hong with pianist Jens Elvekjaer were so unbelievably precise, that this pure ensembleplay in this piece illuminated rarely heard depths and moments of rare moments of high tension developed. This unique performance received storming applause and standing ovations.
Unforgettable
Berlingske Tidende, 10 July 2009
….. The Trio con Brio Copenhagen emerged a few years ago already the perfect players. But the three stars kept on working, bringing the three corners ever closer together, polishing their valuable crystal into something even greater: pure art.
Their reading of Mendelssohn’s piano trios is certainly fantastic. Don’t be fooled by the fact that it was released by the best-kept secret Copenhagen record company of them all, because the soul of the romantic period warms more than just the cockles of our hearts.
Moreover, Jens Elvekjær from Denmark on the piano, his Korean wife on the cello and her sister on the violin are superbly capable. They play differently from their colleagues from recording history: slightly less breezily than the former Beaux Arts Trio. Slightly more together than Istomin, Rose and Stern. Do listen to their new CD or catch one of the many concerts they’re giving these days. Such as tomorrow’s concert at the Tivoli Concert Hall ...
You’ll relish Soo-Jin’s slender violin playing, nod approvingly at Soo-Kyung’s cello as it generates ever increasing profundity, and admire Jens’s all-embracing piano ...
Open your eyes and take in this unforgettable dissonance of black, green and turquoise.
Open your ears and take in this perfect unity.
Søren Schauser
Extraordinary Chambermusic
Politiken, 9 July 2009
…….. The highlight of the first concert at the Tivoli Concert Hall was the great power of the Trio con Brio in Mendelssohn’s C minor trio. The three players demonstrated two of the decisive qualities that make their chamber music making so extraordinary. Each of them has so much to give each tiny little romantic episode in Mendelssohn’s music, and hence each of them continually varied the music in terms of volume, tempi, colouring and temperament, turning it into a kaleidoscopic interpretive mosaic.
This musical variety was also carried out with enormous collective determination. If there had been any differences in the rehearsal room as to the way they thought Mendelssohn should be played in the bicentenary of his birth, there was no disagreement in what the audience were allowed to hear or see. It was as if they had adopted old-fashioned democratic centralism as their musical constitution. They showed a united front to the audience. Thus their superb coordination in the devilish third movement was utterly convincing even when the score might seem to lose momentum a bit, and they made the long, slender, lines of the fourth movement elevate like a passionate hymn. All this at invariably effective tempi and with the same convincing precision the trio impressed everyone with on their Mendelssohn CD this spring………
By Henrik Friis
Important Recording
Politiken, 12 May 2009
Trio con Brio's new release is on the small label CDklassisk, but it must belong to one of the most important releases in the 200-year anniversary of Mendelssohn's birth. The tempo is high everywhere, but it does not compromise the details in the beautiful flowing music.
Mendelssohn's music sounds as though it plays itself in simple phrases, which follow each other as development or comment, and it is the convincing simplicity which gives the recording its great force and importance.
Five Hearts
Henrik Friis
With The Doctor's Participation
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 29 April 2009
Trio con Brio Copenhagen in the 'Alte Oper', Frankfurt
There was the evidence. A facsimile insert leaf included in the program at the chamber music evening concert, of the Frankfurt Museum Society: on "December 29th, 1882, 7 o'clock in the evening". And the insert states this was in fact "with the participation of Dr. Johannes Brahms". On this occasion, his C major piano trio, op. 87 was performed "for the first time". Upon the conclusion of this season of a series so rich in tradition, the finale recital of this jubilee concert season - "200 Years of the Museum Society" - was this eminent work. It was now to be heard with the superb and youthful "Trio con Brio Copenhagen" in the Mozart Hall of the Alte Oper providing a very supple interpretation.
During the performance the Korean sisters Soo-Jin and Soo-Kyung Hong (violin and cello) strengths were especially evident in the more muted tones, such as in the opening movement or in the trio section of the scherzo, whose structure was shaped with apt dryness and precision. The Dane, Jens Elvekjaer, a superlative chamber music pianist, was well aligned with this altogether gentle approach with optimal balance. And he did not fail to convey the more pungent, characteristic Brahms sound.
There was a high point right at the start, not least thanks to his eminently light and fleet playing in Haydn's C major piano trio (Hob. XV:27): crystal clear, perfectly coordinated ensemble playing, extremely well differentiated. The slow middle movement was particularly thought stimulating in its profundity. The presto finale with its playful jocularity and directly pleasing thematic material, likely was the tune most people were likely to go home whistling, being so appealing and memorable.
The ensemble was entirely within the idiom of the composer. They had received a substantial boost to their career with their success at the Munich ARD Competition in 2002, playing Ravel's a minor piano trio. This ideally harmonizing Danish-Korean alliance unfurled a maximum of color interplay, finest nuance, delicate pastel shades, but also expressively forceful colors, in the finale practically kaleidoscope-like, bubbling up effervescently. In addition, the whole was convincingly presented as a single, connected narrative. There was the gently rocking, ever circuitous motion of the second movement, which with its title "Pantoum" seems more to allude to a mysterious and exotic element rather than a specific reference to a Malayan form of poetry; the bleak, reductive Passacaille, which in introverted mood offers an unusual switching back and forth between feelings of solitude and togetherness. The encore, following the Brahms, the final work, was the slow movement of Mozart's B-flat major piano trio (KV 502). GUIDO HOLZE
The Schubertiade Off To A Terrific Start
Dagbladet, 20 August 2008
There is no doubt that Trio con Brio is a chamber ensemble of high class. Their homogenous interpretation and music making was clearly demonstrated in the varied programme, where they paid attention to all details.
Jens Elvekjær opened the concert with Schubert’s well known and beloved Moments Musicaux. His playing revealed a style rarely heard today. Here were no forced passages and the sound was cultivated. Elvekjær did not exaggerate the dynamics but emphasized the melodic parts of the music, and even the passages highlighted by the composer were subdued in a way which felt just right.
Gudmunsen-Holmgreen’s Moments Musicaux from 2006 followed. It is a delightful piece where the Schubert’s pieces are quoted in small bits. The contrast between past and present was inspiring, and the musicians seemed completely familiar with the new piece, which was charmingly performed.
Before the interval Soo-Kyung Hong and Jens Elvekjær played Schubert’s great Arpeggione Sonata. The cello playing was second to none, followed admirably by the pianist. Here as in the whole concert one could enjoy the alertness and quick reactions which is characteristic of all three musicians.
Last in the programme was Smetana’s trio in G minor, which in its violent expressiveness and touching melodic passages is rated as one of the finest piano trios. There is nothing entertaining in this music. From the violin’s solo in the beginning to the dancing coda in the last movement there was a flow of deeply felt and uncompromised musicianship.
A Fantastic Meeting With Trio Con Brio Copenhagen
AvisaBodø, Norway, 11 August 2008
The Danish/Korean Trio con Brio Copenhagen, who have celebrated great triumphs throughout the world gave an unforgettable concert in the Bodø concert hall.
They opened with 'Phantasmagoria' a piece by Danish Bent Sørensen, composed especially for Trio con Brio. This very difficult contemporary piece was dynamic and exciting, and friendly towards the listener. The trio also played Ravel and Mendelssohn Trio in C minor. We were rewarded with an encore - second movement of Mendelssohn's Trio no.2.
It remains to thank Nordland Music Festival for making it possible for us to meet musicians on a high international level. The audience who were so lucky to get this marvellous experience wanderede happily out in the summer evening.
The Magical Trio And The Clarinet
Nordjyske, 10 August 2008
Trio con Brio can celebrate its 10th Anniversary next year. Already the first time we heard them in our area their playing was a revelation, and the ensemble has made their breakthrough internationally after being awarded the prestigious Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Award in 2005.
Their playing is no less than perfect, and if they should be caught on a bad day, certainly they will be the only to notice. Where other ensembles find they have reached a satisfactory levelin their musicianship, Trio con Brio only begin their serious work.
Their trade mark is perfection in sound. This was demonstrated in Ravel, where the movements changed between delicate coloured sound and violent expressive discharges, but the music never lost its transparancy, mainly due to Elvekjær's sublime touch, light and precise at the same time.
Messiaëns Quartet for the End of Time was composed while the composer was in concentration camp and is considered one of the main chamber music pieces in the 20th. century. The performance was hypnotizing from beginning to end with Elvekjær's crisp and transparant colours, Soo-Jun Hong's strongly focused and passionate clarinet, and cellist Soo-Kyung's indescribably beautiful melody floating above Elvekjær's dark, mellow chords.
The piece was performed with such concentration that it was transmitted to the very last pew in Sindal Church.
Lucid Elegance
Gramophone, 1 July 2008
"Sisters violinist Soo-Jin Hong and cellist Soo-Kyung Hong, and pianist Jens Elvekjaer perform with uncommon fluidity and polish, phrasing with unanimity and playing with sensitivity.
The group´s lucid elegance is well suited to Ravel´s Piano Trio. The opening Modere is especially well done, capturing the brooding ruminative expression, with wonderfully languorous violin playing by Soo-Jin Hong. The clarity and spotless articulation of the sisters´ string playing is striking even under pressure in the explosive concluding section. The trio´s airtight ensemble and natural pacing show a firm grasp of Ravel´s structure and style, with the ensuing Pantoum tossed off with the right lightly tripping vivacity. . . their spacious eloquent playing is faultless, with hushed, evocative keyboard work by Elvekjaer at the coda. The performance is rounded off with a sparkling and energized Anime, blending polish and fizzing energy in fine order . . . the Ravel and Bloch performances can compete with the best available. The Trio con Brio Copenhagen is clearly a superb, greatly gifted chamber group, and I look forward to future encounters.”
Trio Con Brio Copenhagen In Wigmore Hall
MusicOMH.com - Classical reviews, 4 May 2008
Trio con Brio Copenhagen, formed by the Korean sisters Soo-Jin Hong and Soo-Kyung Hong and the Danish pianist Jens Elvekjaer, is clearly a well greased machine, arching and swaying in perfect harmony with each other and the music.
Their Wigmore Hall recital was a night of dramatic and unearthly compositions spanning the years 1808 to 2007. With music and performers at this level, chamber music doesn't get much more absorbing.
It's not often said of such a giant, but Beethoven's contribution was more than slightly put in the shade by the sheer daring and spark of the other three works. The programme started with the old master's Ghost Trio, which sets off in the wrong gear and, from the racing, jagged first few bars, the performers have to make a swift adjustment in order to find themselves on the right road, rocky as that is. The music swelled and receded in typically turbulent bursts, more tranquil sections drawing honest and emotive cello playing from Soo-Kyung Hong, with no frills or ostentation. As with any single movement of Beethoven there is never only one frame of mind contained in the music and there were little storms brewing which continued into the chirruping 3rd movement.
What happened next robbed my memory of any more details than that. Shostakovich's Piano Trio no. 2 begins with an unbearably plaintive call from the cello, performed intensely and instantly creating a chilling atmosphere. The soaring 'harmonic' notes (i.e. the fingers only lightly touching the strings at certain points, producing a higher pitch than should seem possible) from the cello are taken up by the violin (this time without harmonics, making the violin sound oddly lower than the cello) and then on to the piano in a disconcerting mini-fugue. This kind of music could have continued in the same vein all night as far as I was concerned, but it eventually veered onto a chugging path that steadily grew until the volume suddenly plummeted as the music continued in a stunning near-silence.
There is a good deal of head-nodding in the audience as Shostakovich introduces some snazzy, aggressive folk music with an occasional nagging premonition of his own eighth string quartet (written 16 years later). This was the real ghost of the evening. There were as many dynamic swoops here as in the Beethoven piece, Trio con Brio playing again with deadly focus and agility. The final movement started with booming, chunky chords on the piano, gradually being replaced by a sinister pizzicato section sounding like a tiptoeing villain. The whole thing concluded with the violin finally getting a chance to haunt us with its own searing harmonics.
After the interval there was a new piece. It was sensational. Written by Bent Sorensen in 2007 and dedicated to Trio con Brio, Phantasmagoria started with what sounded like urgent and exotic bird-calls from the violin and cello bursting out in all directions. Using sliding glissando effects, tiny near-melodies appeared only to subtly vanish into thin air. Every sort of unusual technique is used by the strings, but it manages to avoid sounding like "a hundred and one ways to use a violin" manual, maybe because the aim is to explore individual sounds as sounds rather than to tease the audience with quirky novelties.
There aren't really any musical lines going on little journeys here, more like music reflecting on itself in both senses of the phrase. It seemed likely, but thankfully Sorensen wasn't tempted to have the pianist reach inside the piano to create those all too familiar "ethereal" effects; there was too much good taste in evidence for that. This was a sensitively constructed collection of gorgeous little morsels. The work ended with a beautiful (though it probably only lasted four seconds) bit of singing by one of the two string players over the closing meanderings of the piano. Again, a wonderfully judged bit of delicacy.
Ravel's Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello, the final piece, was ravishing from the very first chord. This is sublime music that lifts you like sunlight. Though the instruments share the same musical material, the same tunes, each player projects the music as if it were completely individual to themselves. Jens Elvekjaer's piano tone (here as elsewhere) was glimmering in the tender passages and powerful in the many dramatic twists of Ravel's mind. Unlike Shostakovich, Ravel is not hell-bent on convincing us he has an individual musical language; he doesn't need to because the ideas are pouring out of him so naturally and joyfully.
There was no real interpretive slant on this or any other work in the programme. Trio con Brio are not visionaries, but they recognise that with music so abundantly rich you don't need to reinvent it to have it radiate with freshness.
Nice little Mendelssohn encore, too.
By Stephen Crowe
Danish, Korean Or Viennese, Trio's Music Is Celestial
Rocky Mountain News, 23 April 2008
In a program consisting of three unquestionably glorious and supremely challenging masterpieces, the trio elevated the music to a point darn close to celestial.
Centerpiece of the evening, and the work that created a stunned silence at its conclusion, was Shostakovich's E-minor Trio, one of the 20th century's greatest chamber pieces. Here, the musicality of the Copenhagen emerged in full bloom.
Balances were impeccable and the brooding intensity, unbridled playfulness and dazzling virtuosity of this remarkable work were tossed off with a high level of commitment and unanimity of purpose rarely encountered in the chamber-music world.
The E-minor Trio carried listeners through a variety of emotional twists and turns, making its final muted statement with an understated power so riveting, that, for a long stretch, no one in the audience dared break the mood with applause.
Throughout the piece, the threesome threw themselves into the music, whispering those mysterious harmonics, exploding with wild-bow-swinging pizzicatos and never losing cohesiveness. During its exuberant movements, the performance was not always neat and pretty - exactly what Shostakovich had in mind. This was quite an experience.
Not so shabby, either, were the surrounding selections. The evening opened with Beethoven's compelling Ghost Trio, dominated by its lengthy, spooky slow movement - delivered with terrific pacing and an unbroken sense of dramatic tension (although Elvekjaer's piano too often overwhelmed the strings).
Brahms' sumptuous C-major Trio ended the program, given a suitably warm and expansive reading by the Copenhagen. Here, Elvekjaer's playing turned velvety as the piano part rumbled and murmured under the archly romantic sweep of the strings.
Moving from the sublime to the sublime, the Copenhagen offered the lovely Andante from Mendelssohn's D-minor Trio in encore.
By Marc Shulgold
Pure Pleasure
Politiken, 20 January 2008
“. . . It was pure, unadulterated pleasure: some Haydn – trio no. 27 in C major – glittery and dancing on tippy-toes, powerfully shaped and flowingly energetic, but at the same time graceful and pointy with pricklingly delicious finesse. A Ravel where each movement was an intense, sensually glowing stream, a single stretching bowstroke and yet so subtly shaded and colored in details. And then the Brahms trio in B major, full of sweeping power and drive and at the same time intimately sung throughout. Every composer was given a uniquely idiomatic and apropos expression – and how palpably physical it felt! . . . The Trio structures their performance upon a common universe of a bright-eyed and laser-sharp presence, overwhelming vitality, and a manner of conducting their tempi that breathes subtly and is insistingly expressive. Not for a moment does anything feel artificial, forced or out of balance. And all these players offer an equally imaginative characterization of their parts – exquisitely distilled aural phenomena . . .”
Engaging
Jyllandsposten, 20 January 2008
”. . . there seemed to be no detail in the four trios – by Haydn, Bent Sørensen, Maurice Ravel and Brahms – that was not meticulously rehearsed and carefully set in place. The balance between the instruments as well as the overall musical architecture was splendid . . . But the trio's playing is more than that. This family business involving a husband, wife and sister-in-law, which next year will have been playing together for 10 years, are outstanding instrumentalists. They play together with a robust, narrative impulse as their point of departure, combined with a towering degree of thoroughness. The result is music that comes across as both vast and transparent. By the same token, there is a powerful and electrifying immediacy, as well as an ongoing sensation so lushly full of sophistication and detail – even in the movements one had considered entirely familiar . . . This year it would be very difficult to conceive of any other chamber music ensemble here in Denmark that is working at this consistently high and contagiously enthusiastic level. Or an ensemble so engagingly desirous of showing us how sumptuous and multifaceted classical chamber music can be.”
Great Performance
American Record Guide, 15 June 2007
"One of the greatest performances of chamber music I´ve ever encountered . . . Let´s get the basics out of the way. Balance, ensemble, intonation are all perfect. They play with perfect unanimity, and each is a solid virtuoso. What stands out from this ensemble is the range of tone and sound . . . They command an amazing range of timbres. Melodies sing with an aching sweetness, or seduce with wild eroticism, or haunt with impenetrable mystery. Cellist Kyung has a hundred different sounds of pizzicato, and can fill the hall with the depth of her lowest register. Pianist Elvekjaer fears nothing, yet never for a moment overwhelms his colleagues . . . The performance of the [Ravel] third movement Passacaille is elemental, inexorable . . . a mighty wind of sound that threatens to blow the listener away. Dvorak´s "Dumky" Trio now seems authentically and completely Czech, and they perform the work with the same masterly approach they brought to the Ravel. They are revelatory. They move comfortably and convincingly from melancholy to exuberant joy, and the listener cannot fail to be taken along."
Photo: Søren Svendsen