Beaux Arts Trio News
“Three minds and bodies have been synthesized into a single
musical entity…chamber playing at the Platonic level.”
– Chicago Sun-Times
Article Archives...Beaux Arts at 50 - Documentary Trio Receives 2006 Concertgebouw Prize Trio Releases New Shostakovich CD Fifty and Still Fresh Staying Power - The Strad Magazine The Most Robust Piano Trio of All Time - The New York Observer For current news on about The Beaux Arts Trio, please visit Google News. |
Proclamation of "Beaux Arts Trio Day" in San Francisco
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From the Press...
“…the ensemble seems to have entered a new golden age of performance.”
-- The Boston Globe, March 26, 2004
”...Brahms's Trio Opus 8 was full of expressive delicacy, the players drawing out a rich, warm and broad ensemble sound. The introspective serenity of the Adagio was inviting, while the Finale had an edge of grit and bold spontaneity. Two lively encores kept the audience captivated: the jazzy and insistent final movement of a trio by young American composer Lowell Liebermann, and the Allegretto of Beethoven's Trio opus 70 No.2, played with the Beaux Arts Trio's inimitable stylistic elegance and power.
-- The Strad Magazine, April 2003
“... The Beaux Arts Trio has retained its almost utopian level of music making: High drama and poignant understatement coexisted in perfect balance, the reining-in and release of tension was masterful and, throughout, the sense of discovery was palpable.”
-- The Washington Post, March 16, 2002
“...The cellist (Meneses) is an aristocratic player who performed with an elegance marked by emotional reserve. Hope, touted as the most important British string player since Jacqueline du Pre, is a very skillful instrumentalist with exceptionally refined musical impulses. His tone remains beautiful, and dead in tune... In the middle of this was the irrepressible Pressler, playing with infinite zest and variety of touch, accent, and color. What a master of the pedal he is; he even knows when not to use it. Phrase after phrase left you smiling with its sensitivity, its impudence, its joy.”
-- The Boston Globe, March 18, 2002
“For decades, the name of Beaux Arts has guaranteed highest art and interpretation of the Piano Trio genre. That label stands firm - the members of the trio change, however, with one exception, pianist Menahem Pressler... Daniel Hope (Violin) and Antonio Meneses (Cello) let themselves be guided majestically but at the same time offered us the most exquisite cantabile as well as transparent tone-colour in Beethoven's "Ghost" Trio... “Heavenly“ was the word that Menahem Pressler used to describe Schubert's music before the encore; in fact this is the word to describe the Trio's interpretation. A superb evening for chamber music gourmets.”
-- Vienna Kurier, February 22, 2002
“...Violinist and cellist have changed before; Menahem Pressler remains the only founding member since the 50s. The famous pianist with a fabulous technical arsenal could be the father of the cellist Antonio Meneses, and almost the grandfather of the 27-year old violinist Daniel Hope... The Beaux-Arts Trio played with a stunning inner unity and balance, demonstrating the subtlest Tempo nuances. It played with a huge dynamic range, from a rich sonority of emotion to a hushed whispering. Their Beethoven was simply brilliant. Even with all their enjoyment, all their accentuated spirit, the music was always served correctly. The evening fascinated the public most, however, with the extraordinary piano passages which the trio conjured.”
-- Neue Luzerner Zeitung, February 19, 2002
“The Beaux Arts Trio appeared as soloists for Beethoven’s Triple Concerto. While the venerable trio has performed and recorded this work many times, this performance was one of renewed freshness. The membership has changed, but this Trio still offers the exceptional pianism of Menahem Pressler, a musician who breathes joy into every phrase. Cellist Antonio Meneses and violinist Young Uck Kim contributed high quality playing...”
-- The Sun Sentinel, South Florida, 2001
“...Beaux Arts, now in its 46th year and fourth constellation of performers, is still the non plus ultra in its genre of chamber music... Together, they play the the greatest literature with keen insight and easy execution, the kind of ease, in fact that would seem facile in other groups, but which is for these players simply the foundation on which to build the great edifices of Brahms and others...”
-- Boston Globe, 2000
“...over the years, pianist Menahem Pressler’s champagne lightness of touch and his chameleon responsiveness to a colleague’s well turned phrase have contributed immensely to the Beaux Arts identity...this latest configuration has all the trademark virtues of the ensemble’s luminous predecessors...”
-- The Washington Post, 2000
"Pressler's contributions...cannot be overstated. His joyous pianism -technically faultless, stylistically impeccable, emotionally irrepressible - are from another age and are a virtually forgotten sensibility...(he) is a national treasure."
-- Los Angeles Times, 1999
"After the Beaux Arts Trio's debut at Tanglewood in 1955, Charles Munch, the legendary director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, wrote: "The Beaux Arts Trio is a worthy successor to the last great trio of Thibaud, Casals, and Cortot." And Maestro Arturo Toscanini said: "Impeccable taste and musicianship. Their performance is an inspiring experience."
"Listening to the Beaux Arts, I was so completely caught up in the performances that I willingly accepted all the artists were doing, both as the most fiercely honest representation of the composer's ideas but also as music making of the very highest order. And--throwing caution to the wind--if there is a finer piano trio before the public today, I have not heard it. These three gentlemen are incredible."
"The key to it all is that they are not three performers on stage, but a true artistic unit, that in their hands a trio becomes a living thing in which three minds and bodies have been synthesized into a single musical entity. Synthesis--that is the word that describes chamber playing on the Platonic level."
-- Chicago Sun-Times
"Its performances are by now so unified and refined that it would seem impossible for the three artists to extract further nuances from the music they play. They work within a very delicate area and the minute degree of tonal variation that they achieve is little short of miraculous. Miraculous, too, is the level of rhythmic vitality and overall spontaneity that they maintain in their playing, despite the number of concerts they give."
"Again the Beaux Arts gave a scintillating object lesson in what chamber music is all about...Beaux Arts is in a class by itself."
-- The New York Times
"Among the world's piano trios, there is none better. All three members perform well enough to be soloists. But even the greatest virtuosos who join together as a trio can remain just that: a trio. The Beaux Arts players' real virtuosity lies in their ability to become one instrument."
-- Time Magazine
"The finely cultivated musicianship of each individual player and their virtuosity of ensemble can, by now, be taken as read...a rare energy of imagination that is seemingly limitless in its application and variation."
-- The London Times
"Their secret lies in all the qualities listed above (virtuosity, expert coordination, unspoken communication, musical insight) in such just proportions that the listener would not have changed anything. They are three quite individual musicians who have learned to defer to each other to create a single personality for the ensemble."
-- Montreal Star
"Chamber music has been aptly described as musical conversation among equals. In those terms the Beaux Arts Trio achieved the maximum level of intellectual and emotional brilliance in their performance. The Trio could not have made a better choice for their topics of conversation - trios by Beethoven, Ravel and Brahms - and they knew their subjects intimately, revealing the very heart of the music far beyond the notes on the score. Each man played with a tonal perfection and such sensitive expressiveness, reaching a sense of ensemble rare indeed."
-- Nashville Banner
"The most spectacular ensemble heard here...the Beaux Arts Trio has everything: individual artistry of uncommon quality, rapport, verve and authority."
-- Ann Arbor News
"They've done it again! The Beaux Arts Trio, which is unquestionably the finest trio performing before the public today, presented another superb concert yesterday, another in the succession of superb concerts they have been giving in Montreal for the past decade and a half. One usually expects only two or three concerts of this caliber a season. To have heard one this early is something of a spoiler. And now, gentlemen, when do you return?"
-- Montreal Gazette
"Beaux means beautiful and that is how they play. The trio is superb. Well- balanced, willing to give and take, accurate, musical, careful to detail without being academic or stuffy."
-- Cincinnati Enquirer
"An evening of sublime music making."
-- Los Angeles Star News
"Beaux Arts approaches the mystical."
-- The Washington Times
"The Trio has something of genius."
-- Indianapolis News
"May they return here forever."
-- Detroit News
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