For this complete recording of Johannes Brahms' piano trios, the internationally successful Salzburg violinist Thomas Albertus Irnberger chose his usual top-class ensemble partners. Irnberger has long had an intense artistic friendship with the versatile cellist David Geringas, who, like the Russian-born pianist Lilya Zilberstein, can point to a number of recordings that are as long as they are impressive.
The Piano Trio No. 1 in B major, Op. 8 can be heard here in the revised version, which closes the time gap of almost 25 years to the other two trios (No. 2 in C major, Op. 87 and No. 3 in C minor, Op. 101), since the revision took place after the completion of these works and thus at the peak of Brahmsian compositional art.
For the Trio for Clarinet, Violoncello and Piano in A minor, Op. 114, Brahms envisaged the viola as an alternative instrumentation from the very beginning, which is mastered by Irnberger as brilliantly as the violin. © Gramola