Brahms & Clara Schumann: Violin Concerto, Romances

“Even before Lisa Batiashvili makes her entrance, we can sense this will be an outstanding performance of the Brahms. Finely balanced, spacious recording, with woodwind and horns well placed, highlights the fine orchestral playing...Batiashvili, too, finds a wholly convincing equilibrium between her bold, passionate entry and the more reflective music that follows...Batiashvili and Alice Sara Ott are splendid advocates for the Clara Schumann Romances.” --Gramophone Magazine, April 2013

 

“Batiashvili’s Brahms is beautifully played and makes rewarding listening but this is a most crowded catalogue...the Staatskapelle Dresden under Christian Thielemann provide the finest imaginable support. In the Clara Schumann Romances Alice Sara Ott demonstrates what a fine recital pianist she has become.” --MusicWeb International, 15th May 2013

“this performance is lively and warm, partly thanks to Batiashvili, who sets the dominant tone in her darkly sensuous opening line...And throughout Batiashvili remains herself: less showy than some but deeply responsive to the music’s inner workings and its colours.” --The Times, 18th January 2013 ****

“Batiashvili can always justify revisiting a popular work such as the Brahms Violin Concerto. Her reading of this tough masterpiece is more lyrical than combative, but there is a tensile quality throughout. Speeds are well judged and the Dresden band play winningly.” --Sunday Times, 27th January 2013

“The concerto is engrossingly done, with the first movement majestically shaped and

 the finale sensibly paced so that we appreciate its logic as well as her panache. And she does indeed play the Adagio like a declaration of love.” --The Guardian, 7th February 2013 ****

The Wigmore Hall Recital: Schubert, Brahms, Mendelssohn, J.S. Bach

Over four decades since securing worldwide recognition as one of the finest musicians of her generation, Maria João Pires continues to transfix audiences with the immaculate integrity, eloquence and vitality of her art. With Pires partnered by Antonio Meneses, cellist with the Beaux Arts Trio and artist of great wisdom and imagination, this recital is clearly a red-letter event for chamber music connoisseurs. "[Meneses's] warmly eloquent understatement matched Pires's own, and grave us something close to perfection" --The Telegraph, Jan 2012

"Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires shared her recital with cellist Antonio Meneses, in a performance which brought a real sense of community, of intimately shared music-making." --The Times

Brahms Works for Viola II

“Rysanov demonstrates yet again his sensitivity and empathy with these pieces. The rich warmth of his tone complements the melancholic autumnal feel which pervades this collection of late works, particularly in the compelling songs, with Alice Coote's beautiful emotive vocal phrasing.” --Classic FM Magazine, May 2011 *****

“Viola discs are flooding the market currently...but this Brahms chamber music CD from Maxim Rysanov steals the limelight...It's addictive.” --The Observer, 27th February 2011

“In the rhapsodic musings of the slow movement Rysanov becomes the idealised incarnation of the gypsy fiddler that Brahms surely had in mind when composing that uniquely florid part. The whole work recieves a performance of such intensity and expressive unanimity that I'm convinced this version was worth disinterring.” --BBC Music Magazine, April 2011 ****

Brahms: Serenades Nos. 1 & 2

Capella Augustina (performed on historical instruments), Andreas Spering

Brahms composed the works early on in his career. The first serenade has symphonic proportions while the second is on a much smaller scale, both in length and instrumental scoring. In it Brahms does entirely without the violins and relies on the wind instruments to take the melodic leads.

"I have not compared them with the various alternatives currently available, but in general these are fresh performances making the most of the music’s youthful qualities. The disc is well recorded, has good notes by Silke Schloen, and is well filled, albeit at the expense of the first movement repeat in the First Serenade. I strongly recommend it, either as a sole recording of these works, or as an interesting alternative to performances in a more autumnal vein on modern instruments." --John Sheppard, MusicWeb International

Brahms Works for Viola I

“In the First Sonata, in which Rysanov is accompanied by the excellent Katya Apekisheva, the music is more freely phrased, with a humorous sense of the latent waltz in the Allegretto and plenty of vigour in the finale. Rysanoc and Jacob Katsnelson are also more effective with the Second Sonata, especially in the agreeably conversational manner they adopt in the final variations, as when the melodic line flows seamlessly between them in the grazioso section.” --Gramophone Magazine, January 2009

“…I found Rysanov's performances of both Sonatas compelling, vivid and packed with moments of great musical insight. The two trio performances are also extremely enjoyable…” --BBC Music Magazine, January 2009 ****

“Brahms was the first to admit that he hadn't entirely solved the new problems of balance in the works that replace the clarinet with a viola (the clarinet sonatas and the Op 114 Trio). With recording, of course, some help can be given.

The viola is well forward in the performances by Rysanov, and this suits the music's extrovert, eloquent manner. In the First Sonata, in which Rysanov is accompanied by the excellent Katya Apekisheva, the music is more freely phrased, with a humorous sense of the latent waltz in the Allegretto and plenty of vigour in the finale. In the Op 114 Trio, the outside movements benefit from the vivid sense of melodic direction provided by Rysanov and Katsnelson.

The G major Violin Sonata was also written for Joachim, and arranged for viola not by Brahms but by his publisher Simrock's editor Paul Klengel. Transposing it from G down a fourth to D to accommodate the viola loses the music something of its elegance, but this is a persuasive performance. Persuasiveness is also needed in Op 40, which began life as the Horn Trio. Not all the cheerful vigour that Rysanov and Apekisheva provide can make the finale seem anything but a piece of hunting exuberance, but they do splendidly with the Scherzo and the Adagio mesto.” --Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

Brahms: The Complete Piano Trios

'A clear first recommendation for any of the five works. I find these fully the equal of any other versions of any of the trios in the catalogs, whether by present-day or 'golden age' performers. Wonderful music-making' --Fanfare, USA

“Enriching performances that make one aware of Brahms's stature first and the superb musicianship of the executants second - which is exactly as it should be!” --Gramophone Magazine

“Aided by an especially clear, vivid, yet spacious recording, the Florestan Trio and their two colleagues allow us to hear far more of this music than usual – the elaborate decoration of Op 114's Adagio, or the sinister detail of the more delicate passages in Op 8's Scherzo. Much of the credit for this goes to Susan Tomes; her playing is an object-lesson in sensitivity and in matching the other voices. Balance and blend are a special feature of these performances.

Anthony Marwood and Richard Lester match their sounds perfectly for the lovely duet passages in the slow movements of Opp 8 and 101. Less expected, and less usual, is the matching of violin and horn, cello and clarinet. But perhaps the single outstanding feature of all the performances is the way the music is shaped. It's not only that the phrases are projected clearly and expressively – the approach moves outwards to encompass the music's larger paragraphs and, indeed, whole movements. These are very desirable recordings, then.” --Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 1; Schumann: Fantasiestücke

"Brahms's First Piano Quartet - the one that received the attentions of Arnold Schoenberg (love it or hate it) - has attracted some of the great pianists: Emil Gilels, Arthur Rubinstein, Rudolf Serkin, Murray Perahia, and now Martha Argerich form a veritable constellation of stars. Here is a performance that grows in stature from the sheer luminosity of the playing. One of those amazing comings together of great musicians." -- Gramophone [Editor's Choice, 4/2004]

“Argerich is a pianistic marvel, effortlessly dispensing tumultuous energy and temperament, but this ensemble lacks interpretative and recorded focus.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2012 ****

Schumann & Brahms: Piano Works

French-Canadian pianist Louis Lortie achieved international recognition by his mid-twenties. His strong, yet sensitively crafted playing has served him well in a repertory of considerable breadth, with a concentration on composers from the late Classical period to the early twentieth century. Through a particularly fruitful association with his record company, he has been able to preserve on disc many of his most impressive interpretations and to enjoy a wide audience for his artistry.

Brahms: Cello Sonatas, Etc

The very opening of the E minor Sonata gives the clue as to what is in store. Maisky's tone is veiled and gentle, and his phrasing affectingly poetic - especially at 040', where the winding melody line makes way for Pavel Gililov to take over the principal theme. Track forward to 403", and sample the same passage in the repeat (not in itself a common occurrence in performances of this sonata), and the approach is more forthright, appropriately so given the more dramatic incidence that the development section has in store. Maisky holds the line with great skill, 

especially considering that both he and Gililov favour a fair degree of expressive rubato throughout (try the quietly broadened opening of the first movement's recapitulation, from 9'28"). The second movement is conversational and lightly pointed, with a tripping second set, and I loved the way the cello races ahead at 340' into the finale, beckoning the pianist to respond.

The opening movement of the F major Sonata is truly Allegro vivace and the pizzicatos that open the Adagio affetuoso slow movement set in at a brisk pace, with the tempo broadening only when the main melody line enters. Maisky's athletic approach follows through to the last two movements, though the Allegro passionalo's Trio is very lyrical.

Which leaves the group of 'songs without words' (Maisky's second series based on Brahms - the first was reviewed in 11/97), which work best where the melody line has an instrumental quality, as in Minnelied, for example, and could easily serve as one of Brahms's lyrical second subjects. Feldeinsamkeit and Der Tod, das ist die kühle Nachi respond equally well to Maisky's confidential manner of playing, but a Lied like Die Mainachl - with its aching crescendos -cries out for the presence of a human voice. Otherwise, all goes well and the sonata performances are recommendable.

Good alternative CD versions of the sonatas are plentiful, with Starker and Sebok and Schiff with Oppitz being among my personal favourites, but if overt affection and warmth of expression are among your highest priorities, then Maisky could well be your man. RC, Gramophone Magazine, October 1999

Duo

"Put on your headphones, close the door and soak in these direct-connection performances of Schumann, Brahms, Debussy and Shostakovich by pianist Grimaud and cellist Gabetta. This is terrific." --Mercury News, September 2012

". . . the duo's playful work on Schumann's "Drei Fantasiestücke" bears out both Grimaud's assessment and the pair's shared sensibilities. Brahms' Sonata for Piano and Cello No.1 in E minor, though possessed of more gravitas, is more lightly dealt with than I've heard before, while they bring a questing spirit to Debussy's Sonata for Cello and Piano in D minor,

Gabetta's robust pizzicato work in the second movement and Grimaud's animated runs in the closing section both evoking the early jazz influence of the late Romantics." --Independent, October 2012

Helene Grimaud (piano) & Sol Gabetta (cello)

Two of today's most passionate and inspirational artists join forces in the recital programme that brought audiences to their feet at the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad in Summer 2011. The chemistry between Hélène Grimaud and Sol Gabetta left critics and audiences nothing short of euphoric and this first duo recording captures the revelatory magic of their collaboration

The album reprises the same programme the duo performed in Gstaad:

Robert Schumann’s Fantasiestücke, Claude Debussy’s Sonata for Cello and Piano in D minor, Johannes Brahms Sonata for Cello and Piano No.1 in E minor and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Sonata for Cello and Piano.

Hélène’s recordings have been best-sellers on the Yellow Label with more than 800,000 units sold altogether to date. Sol is also a best-selling, chart-storming artist, who is regarded as one of the great cellists of our day.

Brahms & Joachim: Violin Concertos

"This is not only one of the best sounding violin and orchestra recordings ever made, but the entire concept is so smart, so well executed, and so thoughtfully planned that even if it were not so musically stupendous it still would be worthy of your attention. As it is, this is one of those rare productions in which absolutely everything goes right. [...] Astounding!" --ClassicsToday.com

Two of the most demanding violin concertos, an imaginative coupling … Joachim's concerto is a dazzling, dramatic and one of the longest concertos for the instrument. It has been called by some the most difficult work in the violinists' repertory. It is surprising that major violinists of the past haven't championed it … Rachel Barton's performances of both works are elegant, technically secure and beautiful in tone. Needless to say, the Chicago Symphony offers superb support under Carlos Kalmar … Cedille is to be commended for this issue, which offers splendid performances of two major concertos, two CDs for the price of one. Highly Recommended! --ClassicalCDReview.com

Reflection

“…even if her Schumann Concerto had come out on its own… I'd still strongly recommend it. From her first two forte chords it is clear this is going to be something special. Every single phrase, change of mood or colour, sounds as though it has been lovingly rediscovered.” --BBC Music Magazine, February 2006 *****

Gramophone Magazine
Editor's Choice - February 2006

BBC Music Magazine
Orchestral Choice - February 2006

“Hélène Grimaud presents us with a second lovingly themed gift, this time mirroring the entwined love of Robert and Clara Schumann and their adored protégé, Johannes Brahms. Grimaud's performance of Robert's Piano Concerto is a superbly bracing riposte to more indulgent and sentimental readings. Brilliantly partnered by Esa-Pekka Salonen, who conducts with all the joy of first discovery, she launches the work with fierce authority before playing the principal theme with a rare sense of its expressivo and affetuoso character. She is no less bold and impassioned partnering Anne Sofie von Otter, an ideal match for a singer whose intensity and vision leave you in no doubt that Clara was a more-than-gifted composer as well as a great pianist. ...joins Truls Mørk in the E minor Cello Sonata, where you get an almost palpable sense of the artists lifting each other to heights they might find hard to achieve alone. Few performances on record have a more robust eloquence and fervour.” --Gramophone Magazine, February 2006

Brahms & Tchaikovsky: Symphonies Nos 3 and 6 "Pathétique"

“Tchaikovsky's "Pathétique" is a powerfully emotional piece under any baton, but in this shattering interpretation Bashmet digs down to its darkest depths to reveal its true Slavic soul. And his young players, all graduates of the Moscow Conservatoire, bring a real freshness to Brahms's Symphony No 3, racing through the opening allegro and dancing through the third movement with sunny insouciance.” --The Observer, 8th May 2011

Novaya Rossiya State Symphony Orchestra, Yuri Bashmet

Yuri Bashmet is one of the greatest viola players of our time, was born on 24 January 1953. He has appeared all over the world with the leading conductors and orchestras in this capacity and has a large discography. He is an ICA artist and is here featured as one of ICA's Live series as a conductor.

Bashmet began his conducting activity in 1985. In 1992, he re-organised The State Symphony Orchestra Novaya Rossiya (founded in 1990) featuring some of the most talented young musicians of Russia who are graduates and postgraduate students of the Moscow Conservatoire.

Bashmet became Chief Conductor in 2002. The orchestra performs in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire and has toured extensively abroad, also recording for EMI Classics and Sony Classics. The orchestra has been conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy and Valeri Gergiev amongst others.

David Nice in his booklet notes commented, ‘So it was with some amazement that I heard these performances by an orchestra many of us will not have heard of outside Russia’ ……‘A certain lean and hungry approach that’s never for a moment ascetic, inform much of what we hear in these razor-sharp performances of core symphonic repertoire’. Of the Brahms interpretation, Nice noted,’Mravinsky- like are the implicit force of the opening and the absolute fidelity to dynamics and controlled power’. Of the Tchaikovsky, he went on to say, ‘Mravinsky’s interpretation never lost its freshmness and this one runs it close in in that respect’.

Brahms: The Symphonies & Overtures

Performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Riccardo Muti. Now a major re-issue of recordings of late-1980s. The complete symphonies by Brahms need no further introduction. They are part the standard repertoire.

"Crisp, beautifully played readings" Penguin Guide to Compact Discs (1994)

Brahms & Dvorak: 8 Hungarian Dances · 5 Slavonic Dances

"Probably the world's best-known conductor and one of the most powerful figures in classical music […] in the topmost ranks of 20th-century conductors." --New York Times

"...the superlative orchestral playing is by turns of warmly affectionate and dazzling." --The Penguin Guide

Beethoven Triple Concerto · Brahms Double Concerto

“There is much to be said for this purposeful yet agreeable Gothenburg recording of the Brahms Double Concerto...[Sara Trobäck & Claes Gunnarsson] are fine players who respond with civility and spirit to Järvi's cogent and forthright lead.” --Gramophone

“This recording is truly a five-gold-star achievement, and one that I don’t expect to be matched anytime soon. This is a must-have recommendation.” --Fanfare

MP3 320 · 154 MB

Dances from the Heart of Europe

'Turovsky and his Montréal players have proved in several previous releases that they are an excellent and responsive band… fifty-two tracks in all, and an intriguing and enjoyable disc. --BBC Music Magazine

'The performances by I Musici de Montréal and Yuli Turovsky are unfailingly stylish and perceptive… Heard as a whole or (preferably) in part, this is a collection that gives considerable pleasure.' --Gramophone Magazine

MP3 320 · 147 MB

Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1

“Pollini plays with tremendous authority and passion...It's a magisterial interpretation...Yet if anything it's Thielemann's contribution that's more remarkable...his command of the orchestra here arouses admiration...[in the Adagio] Pollini and Thielemann produce one of the most beautiful and refinedly spiritual interpretations in recent years. It's a reading of profound poetry.” --BBC Music Magazine, February 2012 *****

“the conductor is Christian Thielemann, not an obvious collaborator for a musician of Pollini's temperament and outlook, yet in practice the partnership works remarkably well. Thielemann's broad-brush expressiveness provides a foil to Pollini's playing, which seems to acquire extra weight and spaciousness from the emphatic orchestra. Some passages have a real theatrical grandeur; the slow movement becomes a rapt hymn” The Guardian, 2nd February 2012 ****

MP3 320 · 100 MB

Brahms: Double Concerto for Violin & Cello, Clarinet Quintet

"Here is a Double Concerto to listen to again and again. Not least because it is rather unusual. The Capuçon brothers are accomplished chamber musicians and they often dig into this music as though in a chamber concert, taking time to explore, passing ideas between themselves. It doesn't displace the recent Fischer/Müller-Schott, but sits alongside." --Editor's Choice Gramophone Magazine Feb 2008

“Gautier Capuçon launches into the opening cello solo with a rhapsodic freedom and expressive abandon that seems to sweep all before it. The performance is outstanding” The Guardian***** (5 stars out of 5)

 “The stellar young Capuçon brothers seem incapable of setting a foot wrong on disc and they put their considerable chamber-music experience to great use in Brahms's final orchestral work, with cellist Gautier Capuçon proving an eloquent lead in the vehement first movement.

The other striking aspect about this performance is the sheer range of colour, not only from the soloists but also from the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, who play their hearts out for Myung-Whun Chung in this most symphonic of concertos. If Oistrakh and Fournier are still irresistible in the slow movement, offering a perfect balance of melodic lines that are lovingly cherished but never saccharine, the Capuçons are still very impressive, and their finale is full of vitality, making much of the folk-tinged inflections and achieving a seemingly telepathic unanimity in their shared passages.

For a change from the usual concerto companion we get Brahms's Clarinet Quintet, written in 1891, four years after the Double Concerto. In this coupling it's easy to hear the Quintet's famous autumnal quality prefigured in the outer sections of the concerto's Andante.

Paul Meyer is an ideal protagonist, producing a wide array of mellow shadings in the opening movement, yet never underplaying the more agitated passages within the piece, notably the Presto of the third movement. The quartet are minutely responsive to Meyer's every move and even seasoned Brahms aficionados will find new detail to relish in both the performances here.” --Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

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Schumann & Brahms: Piano Quintets

“With an almost ideal balance between piano and strings, the variety of articulation in their playing brings a marvellous textural variety to the full-blooded writing in the outer movements of the Brahms. …the performances… can be confidently recommended as among the finest modern recordings of both works.” --BBC Music Magazine *****

“Andsnes, whose playing is full of personality, and the Artemis Quartet, who have a fine presence, give a magisterial account of the Brahms and are no less compelling in the Schumann.” -- The Penguin Guide 2011

“Leif Ove Andsnes has an uncanny knack of revealing the inner truth of the music he plays without recourse to excessive gimmickry. He also has exquisite taste when it comes to choosing his chamber music collaborators, as this pairing of the two cornerstones of the piano quintet repertoire demonstrates.

Schumann's Quintet has become the most famous of his chamber works, with its boundless energy and melodic generosity. Andsnes and the Artemis let the notes speak for themselves, never lingering too lovingly on mere details. It's an approach that serves the work well, and an ideal instrumental balance helps illuminate the work's compelling textures throughout.

It's a similar story in the Brahms. Andsnes and the Artemis are alive to all the possibilities in the pregnant opening phrases of each movement and maintain the intensity of the impetuous passion implicit in this youthful music. The Brahms hasn't fared as well on disc as the Schumann and this recording of it can certainly take its place among the finest. As for the Schumann, it's undoubtedly up there with the best.” --The Gramophone Classical Music Guide 2010

MP3 320 · 152 MB