Critical Acclaim for Trio Solisti
CONCERT REVIEWS:
Trio Solisti Shine in Calgary
"The Calgary Pro Musica Society opened its new season with a splendid concert by the Trio Solisti. It was, I recall, roughly four years ago that the trio made its Calgary debut, presenting a concert that still stays in my memory for its sterling playing and imaginative programming. Sunday's concert at the Rozsa Centre was, if anything, even more impressive, offering Pro Musica patrons a flawlessly played evening of music that was a reminder, if needed, of just how magical an evening of chamber music can be.
This is the 10th anniversary for the trio, which is to say that they are still quite young as professional chamber music groups go. Despite their relative youth, the Trio Solisti play with what might be called "old-fashioned virtues." There is no hint of pandering or of cloying sentiment. It seems that they have never even seen reality TV.
Instead, what they deliver is musical discipline, clear thinking, superb preparation, and a centred musicianship that carries all before it. It is the performance values one has come to expect of legendary groups such as the early Julliard String Quartet or the Beaux Arts Trio - ensembles that in their day set the benchmark for quality in chamber music performance.
These "classical" qualities of performance are rare these days, when various forms of "cute" tend to substitute for clarity of musical thought. With the Trio Solisti, the true musical values are clearly the focus, and it was this sense of good musical health that marked their music-making.
The centrepiece of the concert-and perhaps the best performance of the evening, if only by a trifle-was Beethoven's "Archduke" Piano Trio. This was one of the most completely disciplined, balanced accounts of this famous piece I have heard live, every movement sounding better than the last. Playing of this quality tends to highlight the best music as special, and thus its was the sublime slow movement that created the most powerful impression. Here the nuance of the phrasing produced an individual emotional world for each of the variations.
The final movement, taken at a terrific clip, would have caused any normal pianist to come unglued, but Jon Klibonoff never faltered, the final pages some of the most exhilarating playing I have heard in a long time.
The other major work on the program was the little-played Trio in G minor by Ernest Chausson. A passionate work, and fiendishly difficult to play, this is French romanticism at its most fevered, qualities that marked this exceptionally brilliant performance.
Here, the vibrato of the string players was adjusted - intuitively, it seemed - to the style and sound of French-style string playing, something that gave the performance a remarkable sense of authenticity of style and manner.
Again, it was Klibonoff who was the anchor in this piano-dominated piece, but it was the strings that provided that passion in the melodies that seethes throughout the work. The program opened with Schumann's Phantasiestucke for piano trio, a little-played work by Schumann, but which found a committed advocate in the Trio Solisti. Three of the group's CDs were available at intermission, and they went like hotcakes. I bought all three.
www.calgaryherald.com/entertainment/Trio+Solisti+shine+Calgary
-The Calgary Herald, October 3, 2011
Trio Solisti at The Kennedy Center
Dec. 2009
"...a splashy and exciting crowd pleaser...The Trio Solisti performance was characterized by passion, lyricism, transparency and, in the finale, a sense of triumph."
-The Washington Post, 12/5/09
"Trio Solisti- the most exciting piano trio in America"
-The New Yorker Magazine May 2009
CONCERT REVIEWS: Trio Solisti, Café Style
By Christian Carey
MusicalAmerica.com May 1, 2009
NEW YORK – Although not a common practice today, front-and-center
music-making in cafes is a time-honored tradition, stretching at least
as far back as Bach’s time. On April 24 in an upstairs room at Judson
Memorial Church, Trio Solisti presented a concert in café style,
complete with round tables as well as conventional seating, creating
an appropriately informal atmosphere that included much between-pieces
banter. The program included chamber pieces by Joaquin Turina, Paul
Schoenfield, and Paul Moravec, as well as arrangements of works by
George Gershwin and Astor Piazzolla.
The trio -- violinist Maria Bachmann, cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach and
pianist Jon Klibonoff -- excels at presenting “light classical” fare
in a manner that seems anything but lightweight. The concert’s opener,
Piazzolla’s “Le Grand Tango” emphasized the incendiary side of the
form, with Bachman using judicious portamento, sustained notes
aflutter with vibrato and generous, warm tone. Gerlach, a slightly
cooler player, was an excellent foil, offering sultry countermelodies
and many wide-ranging leaps with nary a misstep, while Klibonoff
articulated dance rhythms with muscular clarity.
Bachmann’s arrangements of “Porgy and Bess” selections were another
highlight, featuring sumptuous, soaring violin lines in “Summertime,”
a gracefully swinging cello solo in “It Ain’t Necessarily So” and some
suave chord progressions in “There’s a Boat Dat’s Leavin’ Soon for New
York.” Robert Russell Bennett’s keyboard arrangement of “Bess You Is
My Woman Now” showcased Klibonoff’s virtuosity. Spanish composer
Joaquin Turina (1882-1949) spent a number of years in Paris, which
accounts at least partially for the impressionist harmonic touches in
Trio No. 2 in B minor, Op. 76, with its rich modality and whole-tone
scales. Spanish influences are present as well; the middle movement is
cast as a jota, a lilting folk dance, and the outer movements offer
similarly folk-inflected, long-breathed melodies, often scored for
strings in octaves, executed handsomely by Bachmann and Gerlach.
Composer Paul Schoenfeld calls his “Café Music” (1986), “an attempt to
write a kind of high class dinner music.” It’s the kind of crossover
piece that makes classical purists shudder; indeed, the middle
movement, an elaborate cocktail piano ballad, is a bit mawkish. But
otherwise it is great fun, and the trio seemed to revel in its
dizzying, dovetailing entrances and bumptious swing. The piece’s
finale is filled with thunderous tutti passages and breakneck-paced
filigrees that would shatter the fourth wall at any restaurant!
Soprano Amy Burton joined the trio for the local premiere of composer
Paul Moravec’s arrangement of his song set, “Vita Brevis” -- five
short poems encapsulating the life story from birth to death. In his
remarks before the performance, Moravec pointed out that the cycle’s
trajectory began with darker themes and moved toward optimism. Thus,
James Agee’s “Lullaby” paints a bleak picture of the world outside the
crib, which Moravec appropriately depicts with an ice cold harmonic
palette. “Mezzo Cammin,” Dante’s meditation on midlife anxiety, has a
restive quality, with angular lines in both voice and instruments.
Mary Frye’s “In Remembrance,” an afterlife poem, receives the most
lustrous treatment, with its sumptuously triadic final cadence
eradicating any memory of the cycle’s stoicism. Burton sang with
beautiful tone, sensitively shading dynamic nuances, although the
vaulted Judson space occasionally obscured the clarity of her words.
The trio’s accompaniment carefully balanced with and buoyed Burton’s
most luxuriant lines.
The concert closed with Piazzolla’s “Four Seasons of Buenos Aires,” in
an arrangement by José Brugato subsequently embellished by Brachmann.
The violinist indulged a penchant for special effects, including
playing behind the bridge to emulate cricket sounds and searing
double-stopped glissandos. Gerlach’s soloing was particularly lovely
here, capturing a lyrical cantabile quality in the piece’s more
reposeful passages. While the program lasted more than two hours, at
its conclusion, no one seemed to want to dispel the delightful
ambience this talented chamber ensemble had so successfully created.
Copyright © 2009, Musical America
CAFE MUSIC CD REVIEW
Those fortunate enough to have heard Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and the New Century Chamber Orchestra perform Astor Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires at the start of the past season know how vibrant the Argentinean master’s music can sound in the right hands. In this arrangement for piano trio, violinist Maria Bachmann, cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach, and pianist Jon Klibonoff play the music’s socks off.
You’ll love Bachmann’s special effects. Paul Schoenfield’s Café Music is delightful, Piazzolla’s Le Grand Tango is as zippy as you’d expect, and Gershwin’s It Ain’t Necessarily So seemingly as necessary as The Rite of Spring.
In the middle of all this comes Joaquin Turina’s exquisite Trio No. 2 in B Minor, Op. 76, which will likely dance and charm its way into your heart. This group just makes great music.
-San Francisco Classical Voice http://www.sfcv.org/news-reviews/features/4670
KBAQ- Cafe Music is CD of the week
" Trio Solisti is a jewel."
http://kbaq.org/music/cdreviews/20090503
Trio Solisti in Concert in New York
"The lighthearted, non-traditional program ignored classic chamber music altogether to celebrate the recent release of the Trio's latest CD, "Cafe Music."
True to form, the Trio's concertizing was an adrenaline rush, soaring, sexy and sonorous, with the players bouncing off one another, digging deeper and deeper to deliver unbridled, rich-toned emotional content."
-Telluride Inside...and Out 4/25/09
The Arts Journal Weblog "About Last Night"
November 28, 2007
CD Review : Trio Solisti "Pictures at an Exhibition"
"...an ingenious arrangement of Mussorgsky's masterpiece by the
members of the trio...and a flawless performance of Ravel's luscious
A Minor Piano Trio by the group that to my mind has now succeeded
the Beaux Arts Trio as the outstanding chamber-music ensemble
of its kind."
-Terry Teachout
Critic, The Wall Street Journal
GRAMAPHONE MAGAZINE reviews PICTURES cd
"Trio Solisti's arrangement skillfully recasts Mussorgsky's musical gallery . . .
fine characterful performances . . . well worth hearing. Tuileries is graceful
and witty, with Maria Bachmann’s clever solo violin evoking a nice fin de siècle Parisian flavour... a lively market at Limoges...an atmospheric Catacombs,
with evocative piano work by Klibonoff...rounded off with a resounding
Great Gate of Kiev.”
-GRAMAPHONE Magazine Feb. 2008
FANFARE MAGAZINE reviews PICTURES cd
“The performance (Mussorgsky) is impressive, especially the multi-hued work from the string-players."
On the RAVEL Trio:
" ...surging sensuality... dramatic contrasts...the second movement is astonishing in its sparkling clarity...the hints of jazz in the second movement are wittily exploited here, too...in all four movements the ensemble is superb... an ardent performance and a welcome addition to the catalog, worthy to stand among the best recordings of the work."
-FANFARE MAGAZINE March 2008
Trio Solisti Debut at Wolf Trap
“Trio Solisti dove into the music's unrelenting passion with zealous abandon.....at times, zeal gave way to tender lyricism in a transcendent performance.”
-The Washington Post April 2006
Trio Solisti at Town Hall, NY People's Symphony Concerts
"...their performance was consistently brilliant...an incisive account of Ravel’s extraordinary Trio in A minor....dangerous and radical…and compelling."
-The New York Times, March 2005
Trio Solisti at The Kennedy Center Terrace Theater
Debut for Washington Performing Arts Society
Trio Solisti: Just the Ticket
"
sophisticated and decisive...Their musicality was marked by a hyperconsciousness of melody and balance, pursued with dramatic muscle and dynamic limberness."
-The Washington Post, November 2004
Trio Solisti Terrific at Troy Performance
Troy Chromatic Concerts, Troy Savings Bank, Troy NY 10/8/06
“Trio Solisti played with rich lush tones, which were amazingly varied in their shadings....passionate and technically brilliant...”
-Schenectady Gazette, October 2006
Chamber Music Monterey Bay Opens Season in Style
“Violinist Maria Bachmann, cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach, and pianist Jon Klibonoff make a sizzling combo of musical artists....fiery intensity.... masterful and lyrical.”
-The Monterey Herald, October 2006
Confident Trio Solisti a Joy
Palm Beach Daily News April 14, 2005
Flagler Musem, Palm Beach, FL
"The tension and release [in Ravel's Trio in A Minor]
was captured by the trio with spellbinding effect."
"In the Brahms C minor Trio, Bachmann and
Gerlach in dialogue with pianist Klibonoff,
let their instruments sing with particularly
rich tone and lyric expressiveness."
On Trio Solisti's recording of
Pulitzer Prize-winning "Tempest Fantasy"
by Paul Moravec for Arabesque Records:
Fanfare Magazine
“These performances are really almost beyond belief, the sort composers dream of. Trio Solisiti plays with split-second accuracy; yet one always feels they are searching for further risks to take in the service of the music.”
Palm Beach Post
"An articulate, vibrant performance...
fueled by propulsive energy: at times nervous,
at times noble, always hopeful. Listening to
Fantasy at its most joyous is rather like
watching the luge, at top speed, in an
exhilarating Olympic Games run."
San Francisco Chronicle
"A first-rate premiere recording"
"An exciting revelation"
"The nimble performances by Trio Solisti and
clarinetist David Krakauer bring out Moravec's
combination of tenderness and sprightly wit."
On Trio Solisti's Recording of
Brahms Trios for Marquis Classics:
STRAD MAGAZINE August 2005
Brahms Piano Trios No. 1 in B Major, Op. 8 & No. 3 in C minor, Op. 101 TRIO SOLISTI- Marquis 74718 13292 www.marquisclassics.com
"Violinist Maria Bachmann, cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach and pianist Jon Klibonoff play this glorious music with rare commitment and insight. Whenever the music turns passionate and physically propulsive they sound in their element, for example in their scorching handling of the finale of op. 8. The tempo injection just before the end is superbly judged and the cataclysmic final bars thrust home to devastating effect. This is a full-blooded reading, opulently recorded with the strings suitably prominent, that makes no apologies for taking this overtly symphonic score out of the chamber room and into the concert hall.
The notoriously tricky Andante grazioso third movement of op. 101 is perfectly handled, giving the music as much warmth and affection as it will take without undermining its air of tantalizing emotional restraint. Once again the free-flowing adrenaline of the finale has one on the edge of one's seat as it might at a first rate concert performance. No less thrilling is the way the players dig deep throughout the first part of the opening Allegro energico, ensuring that even the most high-pressure bow strokes are sounded against cantabile bedrock.
This is to set this highly talented group against the very best the catalogue
has to offer. More please!"
- Julian Haylock
Trio Adds Freshness to Brahms
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Brahms Piano Trios, Opp. 8 & 101. Trio Solisti (Marquis).
"Experts often cite a glut of recordings of canonical works as the reason the classical recording industry is in the dumps. There's just no room for a new album of Chopin waltzes in an aficionado's collection if it's already stocked with Rubinstein or Horowitz. New music also has been stunted by this focus.
Clearly, the balance needs to shift, but today's artists should never completely cease recording the standard repertoire. Occasional new canonical recordings are healthy. Classical music lives in the continuing interpretation, after all.
But listening to Trio Solisti's outstanding new disc of Brahms' Opp. 8 and 101 piano trios, I discovered another reason for polishing up the classics: It promotes the learning of this great music. I've had the Brahms trios sitting around for years but haven't listened to them closely. The standard repertoire, while too limited in scope, is still huge. A new disc gives one reason to get acquainted bit by bit.
While Brahms did revise it later, Op. 8 retains his youthful zeal for the basic elements of harmony.
Pianist Jon Klibonoff's weighty attack on the potent reoccurring cadence in the first movement delivers this enthusiasm with an apt exclamation point. Brahms, the famously staid one, was punch-drunk on the music here, and Trio Solisti's fervent playing brings this out.
Written at the other end of his compositional life, Op. 101 is concise and a bit grizzled. The three play it stately but with underlying lyricism and buoyancy; Brahms had plenty of emotion and fire left. Throughout the disc, the ensemble is excellent. Maria Bachmann, violin, and Alexis Pia Gerlach, cello, play with mahogany timbre but not a saccharine richness."
- Post-Gazette classical music critic Andrew Druckenbrod
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle,
June 2005 TRIO SOLISTI: BRAHMS PIANO TRIOS.
"This remarkable trio
- violinist Maria Bachmann, cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach and pianist Jon Klibonoff - was founded just four years ago, but it's already a major presence in the classical scene. Composer Paul Moravec wrote his Tempest Fantasy for the group, and the piece went on to win the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for music (thanks in no small part to Solisti's wonderful recording). Now, the ensemble has released a terrific new CD of Brahms piano trios. In the great Trio in B major, they paint a musical portrait of titanic struggle on a vast canvas. The Trio in C minor is full of lyrical urgency."
-John Pitcher
The Buffalo News
"Brahms, Piano Trio No. 1 in B, Op. 8, Piano Trio No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 101, Trio Solisti (Marquis). The gifted musicians of Trio Solisti strike a variety of "Three's Company" poses in this album, with violinist Maria Baehmann and cellist Alexis Pia Gerlaeh flanking dapper, bespectacled pianist Jon Klibonoff. It's not all cute camaraderie, though. These musicians really bounce off each other, digging deep into this sonorous, stately, utterly heart-melting music. The robust, romantic themes shine, and the thrilling gypsy syncopations, too, as in the finale of the wonderful Trio Op. 101, the lesser-heard of these two beautiful trios. Trio Solisti behave like soloists, each putting his or her own spin on the music. The performances have breathing room and spontaneity."
- Mary Kunz Goldman
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CONCERT REVIEWS:
The Washington Post April 24, 2006
Trio Solisti at Wolf Trap
Opening a concert with a work as monumental and all-consuming as Brahms's Piano Trio, Op. 87, is risk-taking in the extreme. Playing at the Barns at Wolf Trap on Friday, the Trio Solisti (violin, cello and piano) dove into this music's unrelenting passion not only without mishaps but with zealous abandon, poignantly attending to the work's restless dissonances with a knowing grasp of its tightly interwoven counterpoint. At times, zeal gave way to tender lyricism in a transcendent performance.
While traces of central European melodiousness occasionally crop up in the Brahms, they are at the heart of the next work -- Bartok's "Contrasts" for violin, clarinet and piano -- the clarinet part having once been played by Benny Goodman. Offering every possible timbre and more on his clarinet, David Krakauer, who joined violinist Maria Bachmann, cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach and pianist Jon Klibonoff for this piece, pitted Bartok's cleverly urban street sounds against Bachmann's brilliant fiddling style of the onetime Transylvanian countryside, the violin strings unconventionally tuned.
Paul Moravec's "Tempest Fantasy," honored with a Pulitzer Prize in 2004, was the evening's centerpiece. Joined again by Krakauer (sometimes on bass clarinet), the trio lent emotional resonance and rhythmic inevitability to Moravec's torrents of notes.
-Cecelia Porter
SOLISTI TERRIFIC IN TROY PERFORMANCE October 8, 2006
Schenectady Gazette
TROY -- Trio Solisti opened the 110th season of the Troy Chromatic Concerts Saturday night at the Troy Savings Banks Music Hall with a splendidly performed concert. Violinist Maria Bachmann, cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach and pianist Jon Klibonoff, in their second appearance on the series, were evenly matched, passionate and technically brilliant in the three works on the program. They also showed they had a fine feel for a phrase and an excellent sense of style, as each of the three works were quite different.
They began with what Bachmann told the small crowd was a "mammoth" work by Franz Schubert, his Piano Trio No. 1 in B-flat Major. Never published in his lifetime and only premiered at someone's home one year before his death in 1828, the four movements glisten with a joyous elan. Melodies soar in a natural kind of lyricism. His writing is transparent and has a kind of purity that needs little to bring it to life.
The trio applied a light, well articulated style and were very careful with every detail. They showed a lot of showmanship with their snappy phrase endings and were not shy at taking a few liberties with tempos, like slowing a few bars of music down to better set off the new material that was coming. Gerlach was particularly intense as she played -- her face radiated her emotion.
Yet everyone played with a lot of feeling and were careful to not let it get out of hand but to keep the pacing smooth. The first movement, which is the longest, had a lot of ebbs and flows and sometimes the pianist overwhelmed the players at full volume. The slower second movement was wonderfully serene and the third was immaculate, very bright and strongly controlled. The final movement was a frolic and very finely etched with a splashy coda.
Paul Moravec wrote Scherzo for the Trio in 2002 as a brief rousing encore. Bachmann said it was a "minature bon bon" and indeed it was. Faintly reminiscent of Bartok's rhythmic percussiveness, it was very jazzy, exciting, had lots of color and was technically demanding. The trio was terrific.
The entire second half was devoted to Tchaikovsky's Piano Trio in A minor, which he dedicated to the memory of his mentor, Nikolai Rubinstein, who died March 23, 1881. The work is unusual in that there are two movements with the second written as a theme and 12 variations. Klibonoff excelled in a part more like Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto -- the string writing was even more orchestral.
The trio dug in and played with rich lush tones, which were amazingly varied in their shadings. The melody was typically dramatic in the first movement and fairly simple in the second. The variations were usually short and changed moods, tempos and styles frequently. The best were the wonderful grand dance in the sixth and the fiery yet resolute final that ebbed away to nothing.
- Geraldine Freedman
Chamber Music Monterey Bay opens 40th season in style
The Monterey Herald October 15, 2006
Saturday evening at Sunset Center , CMMB launched its 40th year with a party and a performance by Trio Solisti, highlighted by a performance of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Tempest Fantasy" by Paul Moravec with guest clarinetist Alan Kay. As a drop-in artist of local renown, Stephen Moorer, artistic director of Pacific Repertory Theatre, joined the musicians for a reading of Shakespearian text that mirrored the five movement fantasy.
The trio opened with sensational performances of Joaquin Turina's Trio No. 2 in B Minor, Op. 76 and Brahms Trio 1 in B Major. Violinist Maria Bachmann, cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach, and pianist Jon Klibonoff make a sizzling combo of musical artists.
They have received critical acclaim across the country with their live programs, media appearances and recordings. The Tempest Fantasy counts as a signature work for the trio, a spirited modern piece that allows them to show off their versatility and strengths as an ensemble while providing a unique opportunity for combining music and words in a concert program.
It was intriguing to witness Moorer's Shakespeare personae meet the talents of Trio Solisti spiced with Kay's clarinet magic. Those of us who appreciate local theater, especially Shakespeare, and also partake of the feast of world-class chamber music by CMMB and other presenters rarely have to opportunity to see them come together.
In this instance, the music and narration blended well, with Moorer entering stage left alternately as Ariel, Prospero and Caliban, affecting costume and vocal changes as fit the moment. A knowledgeable Shakespearian actor, Moorer brought the Bard center stage in his own words. The two artistic disciplines, music and theater, created a captivating synergy lending fresh insight to the tale of the deposed Duke of Milan weathering his island banishment.
Bachmann and Gerlach wore, respectively, hot pink and vibrant gold evening dresses seated in front of Klibonoff at the piano. Off to the side a splashy autumnal floral arrangement rose out of an impressive urn that nicely offset the gowns. Moorer strode in costumed in gray robes and a staff after the intermission, whirling a white globe as he passed.
Kay, whose sensational playing lifted the evening to new heights of musical pleasure, added a curious touch of the theatrical by resembling, at least to me, the actor Tom Hanks. Not many chamber concerts provide this much visual content.
The opening Turina work immediately established the fiery intensity of the trio, which made the sparks jump in this vibrant work with its Spanish flavors. The cellist played with such passion that at times you wondered at the stamina of her instrument, which, by the way, possessed a beautiful, charismatic tone. The ensemble gave a masterful account of the lyrical Brahms trio, with Klibonoff bringing it to a supple and dramatic finish at the keyboard. Altogether the
evening served as a unique, musically spirited opening gambit for Chamber
Music Monterey Bay.
- Barbara Rose Shuler
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