Brahms: Piano Quintet, Zwei Gesange

Brahms' only Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34, had a turbulent history before finally taking its rightful place as one of the composer's most sublime chamber works. The quintet began its life as a string quintet; pressure coming from Brahms' friends eventually saw the string quintet's score destroyed in place of a sonata for two pianos. Though Brahms was fond of this version, further suggestions found hard at work on a third and final change in instrumentation, which resulted in the work we know today. At only 31 years of age, the sophistication found in this score is nothing short of profound. Brahms varies the voicing to achieve a nearly symphonic sound on one end and a tenderly intimate chamber feeling on the other.

This is a two-disc collection of music, either recorded on France's Naïve label or acquired by that label, that arose in Vienna during the years on either side of 1900. It might be argued that the music of the Viennese fin de siècle was all about extremes – of length, of concision, of orchestration – and that the best way to appreciate the musical culture of Vienna in 1900 would be to sit down and listen to a Mahler symphony from beginning to end. Still, for a program of short excerpts devoted to music that did not think in those terms, this one works remarkably well. It draws key connections that are usually ignored, and the biggest one is between Brahms on the one hand and the Second Viennese School on the other.