Trio Brontë is the recently minted ensemble of cellist Annie Jacobs-Perkins (who got her start in Rochester before making a name for herself everywhere from Austin to Berlin), German-Italian violinist Chiara Sannicandro and Bulgarian pianist Lili Bogdanova.
This international trio takes its name from the literary Brontë sisters, inspired by their passion for fervent storytelling. Just months after starting to play together, Trio Brontë started winning competitions around Europe, including one that garnered them a record deal. That competition bears the name “Franz Schubert and Modern Music,” two things heard on this debut album.
The music by Franz Schubert is his Piano Trio in B-flat Major, D. 898, written in the last years of his life. Schubert is best-known for his Unfinished Symphony and for haunting songs such as “Die Leiermann (The Hurdy-Gurdy Man),” used to great effect in the movie “In Bruges.” That song-like quality comes through with this piano trio, and each line melds together in lovely, lyrical style in the hands of the Brontë Trio.
The modern music half of this equation, which starts the album, is that of prolific and often challenging modernist composer Wolfgang Rihm (1952-2024). While his music is grounded in the 19th century romanticism of composers including Robert Schumann, most would more likely notice how different it sounds.
In Rihm’s “Fremde Szene III (Distant Scene)” from 1983, there is a base of precision and clarity, as the musicians express strong emotions through extreme highs and lows; the cello sometimes even growls as the trio plays with almost unearthly intensity.
The music on this album sounds as fresh, and as intimate, as a recital in a living room or a small music hall, even as it exists in two seemingly completely different worlds. Both are worth exploring.
