Brahms: The Complete Piano Trios

Johannes Brahms - Piano Trios No. 1 in B major, Op. 8; No. 2 in C major, Op. 87; No. 3 in C minor, Op. 101. Trio in E flat major for horn, violin and piano, Op. 40; Trio in A minor for clarinet, cello and piano, Op. 114

Smetana Trio (Jana Vonášková-Nováková - violin, Jan Páleníček - cello, Jitka Čechová - piano) and guests: Přemysl Vojta - horn, Ludmila Peterková - clarinet

Following on from the recording of the complete trios of Antonín Dvořák (Supraphon), the renowned and critically acclaimed Smetana Trio have taken the logical step of recording a Johannes Brahms album of the same ilk. As a pianist, Brahms earned admiration back in his childhood and later on many occasions even premiered his own pieces. Almost four decades span the first trio Brahms wrote, at the age of twenty, and the last. Besides piano trios in the traditional configuration, he composed a trio for horn and a trio for clarinet. The sound of the horn, an instrument Brahms himself played, was reputedly loved by the composer's mother and he wrote the horn trio as a response to her death. Brahms created the clarinet trio for the celebrated clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld, whom the composer esteemed immensely. The Smetana Trio's guests on the new recording are the outstanding clarinettist Ludmila Peterková and the superlative horn player Přemysl Vojta, winner of the ARD Munich competition (2010) and holder of a Beethoven Ring.

Brahms with the tenderness and engrossing romantic expressiveness of the Smetana Trio.