The Eroica Trio took centre stage during a near sell-out first night at City Hall Theatre wearing stunning silky gowns, the brilliant colours of which evoked the jollity of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper outfits.

From the opening notes played by the award-winning musicians, each a top soloist in their own right, it was obvious every facet of the evening would exude a richness that matched the impressive appearance of Erika Nickrenz, Susie Park and Sara Sant'Ambrogio.

The US-based trio came to Bermuda armed with a repertoire that included Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert and Shostakovich.

They were scheduled to play a different set-list last night to the one that entertained Wednesday evening's audience.

Cellist Sant'Ambrogio performed a duel role acting also as a musical guide, skilfully explaining to the audience what each piece of music was about with vignettes of historical information that brought added relevance and understanding for listeners.

She provided a fascinating insight into the background of Russian Dmitry Shostakovich's 'Piano Trio No.2 in E minor, Op.67', written at the height of the Second World War as the Soviet Army repelled Hitler's Nazi invaders.

Shostakovich created images within his music that shone a light of reality on the falsehoods of Josef Stalin's Soviet dream.

Here was music that mocked the Communist machine's domestic propaganda.

The composer, who died in 1975, had also created a soundtrack that reflected upon growing reports in 1944 of death camps and the evils of the emerging Holocaust.

Is music without words really capable of conveying such precise impressions?

This reviewer had his doubts until the strangest thing occurred part way through the Shostakovich recital.

The trio finished an intense suite from the composition and were greeted not with applause, as happened at every other break in the music during the evening, but with an unnerving silence.

Was it Sant'Ambrogio's earlier description of what the piece was about that had played on the audience's collective conscience or was it something far deeper and dark within the music itself that hit a primal nerve within each member of the audience?

If it was the latter, then it is a testament not only to Shostakovich's genius but also to Eroica Trio's faultless interpretation of the 63-year-old piece.

At the beginning of the Shostakovich segment, Sant'Ambrogio's cello resonated eerily as she recreated Shostakovich's false harmonies.

The ghostly sound was augmented when violinist Park played notes that were even lower than those of the cello.

Pianist Nickrenz is the driving force of the trio, bringing a passionate soundscape to the stage that, at times, is the canvas on which the two string instruments flourish, but also takes a commanding position with an intricate variety of moods, most beautifully captured on Wednesday during Schubert's wonderful Venetian-tinged chamber music piece 'Piano Trio in B-flat major, Op.99', which filled the second half of the performance.

The evening began with Jean-Baptiste Loeillet's 'Trio Sonate No.2 in B minor', a composition that allowed all three players to add their own idiosyncratic musical expressions.

At the conclusion of their debut performance in Bermuda, Eroica Trio were given resounding applause and returned to the stage to perform a short encore from Camille Saint-Saens' 'Carnival of the Animals'.

It was a personal indulgence of Sant'Ambrogio, who told the audience she had loved 'The Swan' suite since she had first heard it and had subsequently created her own cello arrangement which was supported by Nickrenz's piano and Park's violin.

The most famous suite from the 19th century romantic composer's 'Carnival of the Animals', recognisable to many as the music that accompanies performances of 'The Dying Swan' ballet, provided a fitting finale to the Eroica Trio's two-hour set.