…the young Swede Martin Fröst plays with elegant phrasing and beautiful, even produced tone… In the two sonatas, he's perfectly matched by his compatriot Roland Pöntinen in performances which capture Brahms's serious, autumnal mood without undue heaviness... cellist Torleif Thedéen proves as adept as his colleagues in producing singing tone and velvet pianissimos, and equally sympathetic to the ageing Brahms's elusive blend of resigned melancholy and abiding generosity of invention.

The Trio tends to be the neglected one among the great clarinet works from Brahms's mellow last period, usually coupled with the Clarinet Quintet as though a poor relation.
That is grossly unfair to a work which, while maybe not on such a grand scale as the Quintet, has over its four compact movements both profundity and charm. BIS, however, has put it with the sonatas, works on a scale closer to the Trio, and an excellent and successful coupling it is.
Young Swedish clarinettist Martin Fröst has established himself as a leading soloist, appearing with many of the most important European orchestras and inspiring works from composers including Penderecki. He tends to favour speeds on the fast side in the Trio, which means that the second movement Andante may lack the meditative depth one finds elsewhere but which has an easy flow. The dramatic bite and thrust of the outer movements is enhanced by relatively urgent speeds, with the coda of the first fading away on a ghostly scalic passage.
Cellist Torleif Thedéen matches Fröst in imaginative playing but pianist Roland Pöntinen, placed backward in the recording balance, is less individual. None the less this is a generously filled CDs and the couplings are apt.

Young Swedish clarinettist Martin Fröst has established himself as a leading soloist, appearing with many of the most important European orchestras and inspiring works from composers including Penderecki. He tends to favour speeds on the fast side in the Trio, which means that the second movement Andante may lack the meditative depth one finds with Thea King on Hyperion but which has an easy flow. The dramatic bite and thrust of the outer movements is enhanced by relatively urgent speeds, with the coda of the first fading away on a ghostly scalic passage.