The Washington Post 10/11/05:  Since its founding fifty years ago, the Beaux Art Trio has become the gold standard for trios throughout world –- if not the the universe. Founding pianist Menahem Pressler, still presiding lion-like at the helm at 81, continues to embody the consumate musicianship that has charmed audiences since, well, forever. And with the recent addition of the frighteningly-gifted 30-year old Daniel Hope on violin, and Antonio Meneses manning the cello with courtly aplomb, the group may be in its most powerful incarnation yet.

All this musical fire-power descended on National Gallery Sunday night in perhaps the most electrifying concert in the District this year. Playing to a nearly ecstatic crowd, the Trio came flying out of the gate with Bohuslav Martinu’s Trio No. 1, a rambunctious work from 1930 whose pungent harmonies and rapidly shifting contrasts -– punched up with traces of hot jazz -- practically burst out of their  skin with aliveness.

The Trio moved onto more familiar terrain with Beeethoven’s Trio in E-flat Major Op. 70 No. 2, turning in a riveting, brilliantly-nuanced account that made real sense out of Beethoven’s inner turmoil.  And the program’s final piece, Schubert’s Trio in E-flat Major Op. 100, can be perilous: With its broad lyric sweeps and soul-tearing climaxes, it’s a written invitation to start chewing up the scenery; you can hear the heaving bosoms from the get-go. But the Beaux Arts gave a passionate, controlled explosion of genuine human feeling --  clear-eyed, convincing and, above all, deeply and profoundly moving.