Liza Ferschtman, Ivan Karizna & Storioni Trio

For quality, we don't have to stray very far. Liza Ferschtman belongs to the Golden Era of enormously talented and successful Dutch violinists. The Storioni Trio is also made up of Dutchmen: in fact, their home base is Eindhoven! Pianist Bart van de Roer, violinist Wouter Vossen and cellist Marc Vossen run the Storioni Festival, which they organise every year and which has now won its permanent place in Dutch music culture. Today's showpiece is Johannes Brahms' romantic piano quintet. A deeply moving play with light and dark - the latter especially.

A string quintet? A sonata for two pianos? Or perhaps a piano quintet? After much deliberation, 31-year-old Brahms settled on the latter when he completed his opus 34. It promptly became "the crown jewel of his chamber music." And for Brahms, that says a lot... "At times troubled, at times - in the scherzo - demonic, at times tragic." Osvaldo Golijov composed an accessible, lyrical work for string quartet called Responso. Born in La Plata, Argentina, to Romanian/Ukrainian parents, relocated to Israel, and finally chose the United States as his domicile, Golijov combines many cultures in his work. Early Music Review wrote about a CD by the Storioni Trio: "Fans will be delighted by [...] the Storioni Trio: fresh playing that lends genuine transparency to the texture, beautiful lyricism from all three musicians."