Following on from the recording of the complete trios of Antonin Dvořak (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 Muhlfeld, whom the composer esteemed immensely.

The Smetana Trio’s guests on the new recording are the outstanding clarinettist Ludmila Peterkova and the superlative horn player Přemysl Vojta, winner of the ARD Munich competition (2010) and holder of a Beethoven Ring.

'A vital ingredient in the Smetana Trio’s success is the quality of their string sound, its variety of tone and the handling of vibrato. Certainly, there are many details to admire in these performances, but in the end it is the Trio’s unrivalled feeling of ensemble that generates results unmatched in the catalogue.' - Jan Smaczny (BBC Music Magazine)