Critical Acclaim for Trio Solisti
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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
