Brahms Songs

On her third PENTATONE album Nostalgia, Magdalena Kožená presents Bartók’s Village Scenes, Mussorgsky’s The Nursery and a selection of Brahms songs, together with acclaimed pianist Yefim Bronfman. Sung in Slovak, Russian and German, these songs on love, longing and innocence show three master composers transforming folk traditions into their unique musical styles. Kožená demonstrates her vocal mastery once more, and this recording with Bronfman is the result of a two-decades-spanning congenial artistic partnership. Nostalgia is star mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená’s third album as part of her exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE, after having presented the baroque cantatas recital album Il giardino dei sospiri and the songs in chamber-musical setting project Soirée in 2019. Yefim Bronfman, whose commanding technique, power and exceptional lyrical gifts are consistently acknowledged by the press and audiences alike, makes his PENTATONE debut.

This release by Norwegian cellist Jonathan Aasgaard (the principal cellist of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra) and British pianist Martin Roscoe purports to be a complete recording of Brahms' music for cello and piano. In fact it's padded with quite a few other things that have little or nothing to do with Brahms other than the fact that he composed the original music.

This release by Norwegian cellist Jonathan Aasgaard (the principal cellist of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra) and British pianist Martin Roscoe purports to be a complete recording of Brahms' music for cello and piano. In fact it's padded with quite a few other things that have little or nothing to do with Brahms other than the fact that he composed the original music.

Taken from Jessye Norman’s contribution to the Lieder volume of Deutsche Grammophon’s complete Brahms Edition (alongside Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau), this CD presents many favourite Brahms songs including the gypsy-influenced Zigeunerlieder. The singer is caught in her absolute vocal prime. Sung texts and translations are included.

Really, it's quiet beautiful. The pellucid lyricism of "O Trauenvolle," the opening Rilke song, is quite, quite beautiful. And as the gorgeous Rilke songs are followed by a glorious Goethe and a sarcastic Krauss song, five ironic Kafka songs, four ecstatic Gerard Manley Hopkins songs, an extraordinary Donne song (The Flea!), and a final set of nostalgic Emil Barth songs, one realizes that, really, all Krenek's songs are quite, quite beautiful…….

James Leonard @ AllMusic

Following the iconic series of the complete songs of Schubert and Schumann, Graham Johnson’s latest enterprise traverses the complete songs of Brahms. He is joined here on Volume 2 by the wonderful Christine Schäfer, whose contribution to the Schumann song series won a prestigious Gramophone Award.

Graham Johnson’s complete Schubert and Schumann songs series for Hyperion are landmarks in the history of recorded music. Now this indefatigable performer and scholar turns to the songs and vocal works of Brahms. Each disc of this Hyperion edition takes a journey through Brahms’s career. The songs are not quite presented in chronological order but they do appear here in the order that the songs were presented to the world. Each recital represents a different journey through the repertoire (and thus through Brahms’s life). In a number of these Hyperion recitals an opus number will be presented in its entirety (in the case of this disc, Op 48). The folksongs of 1894 will be shared between all the singers in the series.