Brahms

First of all, the Brahms selections are among the finest in the entire Richter the Master series. As a glance at the online Richter discography discloses, the two sonata aren't the same readings as on a previous Decca release. Sonatas no. 1 and no. 2 are from the same recital in Tours, June 19, 1988, the year that the great man turned 73. The live recording is closely miked bu clear and full, and despite complaints about his hard touch, it's not anything beyond what we often hear from Richter; consult the more mercurial and restless Decca account for a fair comparison. In fact, it's short-sighted to fault any of Philips' recordings for sound quality given the often abysmal sonics on countless live concerts taped on the fly by amateurs, the Soviets, and various radio stations.

This recording of the complete chamber music works for clarinet by Johannes Brahms is presented with first-rate interpreters: Laura Ruiz Ferreres, one of the most gifted clarinettists of her generation, and pianist Christoph Berner. Internationally renowned cellist Danjulo Ishizaka and the Mandelring Quartet complete the superb line-up of instrumentalists for this recording.

Violinist Joshua Bell and cellist Steven Isserlis are joined by two acclaimed musical forces - pianist Jeremy Denk and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, of which Bell is Music Director – in a landmark joint recording, For the Love of Brahms (Sony Classical). Available September 30, 2016, the new album is a unique project that features works of Brahms and Schumann that Bell calls “music about love and friendship.” Bell, Isserlis and Denk unite here in Brahms’s first published chamber work, the Piano Trio in B Major, Op. 8 in its rarely performed original 1854 version. Isserlis also joins Bell – as violin soloist and director – and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in Brahms’s last orchestral work, the celebrated Double Concerto (for Violin and Cello) in A Minor, Op. 102. Bell, Isserlis and members of the Academy also offer the first recording of an unusual coupling: the slow movement of Schumann’s rarely heard Violin Concerto, in a version for string orchestra made by Benjamin Britten, who also added a short coda.

Like Paavo Berglund’s Sibelius symphony recordings, also with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, these Brahms performances inject a certain novelty that will be appreciated especially by the listener who has wearied of them due to excessive repetition. While these are not radically desiccated renditions in the manner of Chailly or Harnoncourt, the COE’s smaller-scaled string body does require a bit of time at first for your ear to adjust to the thinner timbres. But the reward is a harvest of inner detail, much of it barely audible in full-size orchestral performances (but well captured by Ondine’s vivid recordings), which continually surprises and delights.

Gilels had immense physical power and impeccable control, but he was also capable of exquisitely refined poetry and had an acute perception of the lyrical impulse lying behind even the most assertive of Brahms's writing. The firmness of attack and the depth of sound that make his (and the Berlin Philharmonic's) playing so thrillingly dynamic can be offset by the most poignant of delicate gestures. There is undeniable grandeur to these readings, but with those additional qualities of wise thinking, generous expression and artistry of great subtlety, these performances are in a class of their own.

"The main attraction on this disc is the Berio orchestral arrangement of the Clarinet Sonata op.120/1. Like Schoenberg, it’s a harmonically and melodically “straight” transcription, not a modern re-imagining of the work. Berio, no stranger to orchestrations and adaptations - Puccini’s Turandot, works by Schubert, Mahler, and Verdi - tackled this last major work of Brahms’ for reasons we don’t know. Iosif Raiskin speculates that the tinges of Mahler in late Brahms may have been a reason for the Mahler-loving Berio. Be that as it may, the result is a wonderfully graceful Brahms Clarinet Concerto.

This album features two major artists, past and present: Johannes Brahms and Arabella Steinbacher. However, even the best of artists have their less than perfect moments or works. These three sonatas, as played hereby Steinbacher and Kulek, come across as less exciting, lesser works by Brahms. The Sonata No. 1 sounds rather anemic as it begins (partly because of the recording quality), but Steinbacher chooses to play without much fullness or vibrato, even though she is playing a Stradivarius.

I"m much more a fan of Mutter/Karajan Brahms violin concerto than the double concerto that is paired here. I have other Brahms Double Concerto recordings I prefer. But, this Karajan GOLD Brahms Violin Concerto is definitely a sonic upgrade from a standard DG (non-gold) issue when the Violin Concerto was all that was put on the disc. I'm hearing more spatial relationships, more tonal accuracy, more upper end and balance.