This lovely, eminently listenable live recording serves to introduce an outstanding young Italian string trio consisting of the siblings Barbara, Giada and Klaus Broz. In their naturalness, unobtrusive virtuosity and close ensemble they remind me of the original line-up of the Leopold Trio. It is 23 years since Dmitri Sitkovetsky published his version of Goldberg Variations for this instrumentation and recorded it with Gérard Caussé and Misha Maisky.  Bruno Giuranna tells me that he started modifying that version but soon foun he was making a new one, wich is used here. I find the result more convincing than the Sitkovetsky, although some parts are inevitably almost identical.
Var. 19 is played in pizzicato and, where four voices are involved, Giuranna resorts to double-stops on violin and viola. In var.23 the violin has scales in third and sixths.
The playing is so good, so unified and so consistently beautiful in tone that is amazing to realise we are listening to a concert performance. The initial statement of the theme is just a little stiff to start with, but the players soon relax. The recording quality is as sympathetic as the musicianship.

This recording of the Goldberg Variations in a version for string trio is further proof of how Bach's music is apparently impervious to the instruments it's played on.

 There are countless arrangements of Bach’s meditative epic but  this one for string trio by the violist Bruno Giuranna goes to the front rank. Trio Broz – three siblings- share the melodic weight, the three lines simple yet using the strings’ dynamic shading to create a sense of conversation, all in stunning hi-def audio quality.

Thanks to their speculative character, the Goldberg Variations, a monumental page in harpsichord repertoire of Bach, have been performed on several transcriptions, for solo instruments (such as the harp) as well for chamber ensemble. The version for string trio by the Russian violinist Dimitry Sitkovetsky knew for example certain luck; in addition to this now, for the same ensamble, we can hear the transcription by Bruno Giuranna, which is actually not recently, because he wrote it for his string trio - Trio d'archi Italiano -, but it never landed circuits of publishing and discography, and remained fast unknown. Now the CD of Velut Luna let us hear this interesting and successful transcription which distributes the counterpoint in the sounds of the violin, the viola and the cello (often actually we can see three lines in the score for harpsichord) with a new plasticity and transparency for the complex composition, in several moments extraordinarily vivid and immediate. The Trio Broz prepared the execution under the guidance of the same Giuranna and thus the interpretation accurately reflects the aesthetic idea of the transcriber: far from the logic of philology and the "Baroque sonar," the execution of the Trio Broz seems to tend towards the classical idea of purity, of perfect balance, in a bright and anodyne treatment of the complex musical material.

Bach had a student named Goldberg. He was protected by Count von Keyserling, who was suffering of insomnia. So the young musiciann asked Bach a speculative and seductive composition for harpsichord, that he could play during the night. The history of the Goldberg Variations is known. But now goes on: a legendary Maestro of viola, Bruno Giuranna, born in Milan, famous throughout the world, transcribed for string trio the Goldberg. He gave it to a wonderful young italian Trio (although the name "Broz" is deceiving) formed by three siblings, grew up in the music between Verona, Salzburg, Rome and Fiesole. The album, world premiére recording, gives a rare pleasure. Bach sounds magnificent: more singing, more colours, thanks to this version for strings. Bravo Trio Broz: a lot of poetry.

To alleviate the seriousness that hovers around Bach and these famous rigorous geometric variations, you usually simplify the genesis of the work telling that it were intended for the harpsichord of his pupil Johann Gottlieb Godberg: he could alleviate the sleepless nights of Count von Keiserling by performing. Actually, this transcription seems made to take awake even who wanted to take a nap, this is the vitality that springs from unraveling the dense contrapunt, much clearly than possible with the keyboard alone. Following the example of the Bach and his contemporaries - who created masterpieces by transcribing own or other people's works - the Goldberg Variations were during the centuries repeatedly transcribed for various organic. Among the most original ones there is certainly this version, by the violinist Bruno Giuranna, member with Gulli and Caramia of the unforgettable Trio Italiano d'Archi, whose possible successors seem to be Barbara and her siblings Giada and Klaus, with an interpretation full of young vitality.