In a review of Trio Solisti's new Brahms CD earlier this month, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette classical music critic Andrew Druckenbrod had this to say about the group's new recording.

"Listening to Trio Solisti's outstanding new disc of Brahms' Op. 8 and 101 piano trios, I discovered another reason for polishing up the classics," he writes. "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."

Druckenbrod went on to explain the two Brahms pieces the trio performs. "While Brahms did revise it later, Op. 8 retains his youthful zeal for the basic elements of harmony," he writes Trio Solisti 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 trio stands up to the challenge, in Druckenbrod's estimation. "The three play it stately but with underlying lyricism and buoyancy," he writes, and in so doing prove that "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."

Copies of the Brahms CD will be available for purchase at Telluride MusicFest (please see schedule on page B17 for more information).