Brahms: Horn Trio in E flat major, Op. 40

“Overall, these musicians have an especially strong and fine sense of line. The Horn Trio is full of echt-Romantic vistas and half-lights...The Clarinet Trio is a revelation: not at all the austere, reserved piece it often seems, but deeply poetic and full of late autumnal colours.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2013 ****

“there is spontaneous engagement with the music and such a heroic sweep to the playing...(Peterkova's clarinet playing in the Op. 114 Trio is absolutely magical)...The Smetana Trio is thus at or near the top of my short-list of relatively recent recordings of these glorious works.” International Record Review, May 2013

“What the Smetana may lack in polish they make up for in exciting raw edged playing. This rather sets them apart from other ensembles.” MusicWeb International, April 2013

“Neunecker has a fascinating horn sound. She distinguished effectively between open and stopped timbres, but even her open sound is quite narrow and constrained...any new recording [of the Brahms] has to fight on the merits of its performance. Fortunately then, this one stands favourable comparison with the best of them.” MusicWeb International, June 2012

“In the First Sonata, in which Rysanov is accompanied by the excellent Katya Apekisheva, the music is more freely phrased, with a humorous sense of the latent waltz in the Allegretto and plenty of vigour in the finale. Rysanoc and Jacob Katsnelson are also more effective with the Second Sonata, especially in the agreeably conversational manner they adopt in the final variations, as when the melodic line flows seamlessly between them in the grazioso section.” Gramophone Magazine, January 2009

“…I found Rysanov's performances of both Sonatas compelling, vivid and packed with moments of great musical insight. The two trio performances are also extremely enjoyable…” BBC Music Magazine, January 2009 ****

“Brahms was the first to admit that he hadn't entirely solved the new problems of balance in the works that replace the clarinet with a viola (the clarinet sonatas and the Op 114 Trio). With recording, of course, some help can be given.
The viola is well forward in the performances by Rysanov, and this suits the music's extrovert, eloquent manner. In the First Sonata, in which Rysanov is accompanied by the excellent Katya Apekisheva, the music is more freely phrased, with a humorous sense of the latent waltz in the Allegretto and plenty of vigour in the finale. In the Op 114 Trio, the outside movements benefit from the vivid sense of melodic direction provided by Rysanov and Katsnelson.
The G major Violin Sonata was also written for Joachim, and arranged for viola not by Brahms but by his publisher Simrock's editor Paul Klengel. Transposing it from G down a fourth to D to accommodate the viola loses the music something of its elegance, but this is a persuasive performance. Persuasiveness is also needed in Op 40, which began life as the Horn Trio. Not all the cheerful vigour that Rysanov and Apekisheva provide can make the finale seem anything but a piece of hunting exuberance, but they do splendidly with the Scherzo and the Adagio mesto.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“The whole performance [of the horn trio] has a lightness of touch and an athletic exuberance that are totally convincing.” Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 22nd August 2008 ****

“It's a superb version of the piece by any standard, the slow movements absolutely saturated in intense Romantic melancholy but fleet and agile in scherzo and finale. Faust and Melnikov and scarcely less revelatory in the G major Violin Sonata… Very generous in terms of its duration, this is a disc where one truly feels every note has been given the space to make its effect.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2008 *****

“Teunis van der Zwart used a natural horn from Lorenz built in 1845. He is an astonishingly accomplished and musical player, and he has a superb supporting team.” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2008

“This is a unique performance [of the Horn Trio] and the result is a triumph, with 'stopped' notes adding to the range of colour, as the composer intended.” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition

“The redoubtable Barry Tuckwell blending well with Brenton Langbein and Maureen Jones in Brahm's passionate Trio, four charming miniatures by Koechlin, and a dramatic, cogent Trio written for these three Aussies by their compatriot Don Banks.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2009 ****

“Barry Tuckwell's distinguished Decca…recording of the Brahms Horn Trio with Perlman and Ashkenazy… lost much of its sharpness of focus in the CD transfer. So there is room in the catalogue for this fine 1987 performance… beautifully played, very realistically recorded and balanced in an ideal acoustic.” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2008

“Although Ashkenazy brings a soloist's attitude to the Franck, easily matching Perlman's passionate playing, it's Tuckwell's delivery that stays in the mind - discreet and strongly projected by turn.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2007 ****

“...Perlman is among the sweetest of violinists, as Ashkenazy is among the most fluent of pianists; in this work the combination is a formiddable one ... an absolutely equal partnership between violin and piano ... a successful balance in the recording which seems to me to be ideal... Perlman and Ashkenazy have chosen to invite Barry Tuckwell to join them in the Brahms Horn Trio ... here again is a very successful performance ... Tuckwell shaping every horn phrase as if it were the only one in the whole of music (and, in passing, as if just playing the horn itself were no technical problem at all).” Gramophone Magazine

“These players bring a welcome nobility to the Horn Trio, even if the passion and opulence of Tuckwell & Co (Decca) remain persuasive. The autumnal intensity of the Clarinet Trio is also well caught.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2005 ***