"For the Trio con Brio Copenhagen, recognised as one of the finest piano trios in the world, the year 2019 will mark their twentieth anniversary. At this pccaison Orchid Classics is releasing their multi-volume traversal of the complete Beethoven Piano Trios. The two first volumes were published in 2018, vol. 3 will follow in May 2019. James Inverne spoke with the Trio's pianist Jens Elvekjaer. You have referred to the coming-together of the Trio con Brio Copenhagen as the bringing together of “two pairs”. Meaning, of course, the sisters, Soo-Kyung Hong (cello) and Soo-Jin Hong (violin); and then the husband and wife pair of yourself with Soo-Kyung. How did that evolve? Of course, the sisters had played together since childhood, then of course a husband-and-wife relationship is special in its own way, and so we all had these dynamics of unique understandings".
And are you still led by that idea, of the two pairs together? Ideas evolve, and now, we discovered that there is another pairing – that between the trio as an entity and the audience. So do you find that you alter your playing depending on the audience? They have an effect, but we now have a clear identity within ourselves, and I think it’s important for the audience when they come to know that they’re getting our way of making music rather than something we are simply going to adjust depending on how the audience feels to us. That way, they are coming to hear the trio’s interpretation, nobody else’s, and an interpretation that we have built up to and that is part of this journey we are on together."
