Natalya Mnatsakanyan Ruben Kosemyan Plays Brahms Complete Sonatas & Scherzo

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.

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.

Brahms’s two sonatas for clarinet and piano, Op 120, composed in 1894, were followed only by the four Serious Songs and a set of organ chorale preludes (some of which may have been written at earlier times). His farewell to chamber music was also his farewell gift to the clarinet.

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.

Thoughtful, sensitive playing in slow movements, lively tempi in allegros, characteristic musicianship plus spontaneity combine to make these recordings highly recommendable throughout…

Member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, principal of the New World Symphony, and partner of Renée Fleming on the CD Bel Canto, clarinetist Todd Levy is hot stuff. Actually and more accurately, Todd Levy is mellow stuff – rich, lush, full, deep, and sweet stuff. In this, his first solo disc, Levy takes on four of the most Romantic works in the clarinet repertoire, that's Romantic with both an upper and a lower case R: Brahms' two late sonatas in F minor and E flat major plus Schumann's Fantasy Pieces and, naturally, his Romances. It's a match made in heaven: Levy wraps himself around each piece like a coat in late autumn, playing with a cantabile tone and a flawless technique.

After titanic contributions to the cello sonata repertoire by Ludwig van Beethoven, few notable additions were made for several decades. Not until 1862 did the cello sonata re-emerge in the hands of Johannes Brahms. His peculiar First Sonata contains only three movements (the Adagio having been omitted for fear of the sonata being too lengthy) and a finale that all but defies formal analysis. Almost a quarter century passed before Brahms again returned to the cello sonata, this time in the key of F major. The second sonata is considerably more challenging for cellists and Brahms' treatment of the instrument is not the exclusively lyrical, sonorous melodies that one might expect. Rather, Brahms incorporates lots of rhythmic, motivic playing and pizzicato passages and rapid bariolage. A "third" cello sonata, which has become increasingly popular in recent years, is Paul Klengel's (whose cello-playing father was much admired by Brahms) transcription of the G major Violin Sonata.