Natalya Mnatsakanyan Ruben Kosemyan Plays Brahms Complete Sonatas & Scherzo

Mozart’s piano sonatas exemplify the economy and subtlety of the composer’s genius. Though simple at first glance, they are works in which each note is filled with musical and expressive purpose. Alexei Lubimov, a master of keyboard repertoire from the Baroque to the contemporary, plays the complete sonatas on three instruments modelled on 18th century originals. These interpretations, which explore the particular possibilities of the fortepiano, led Gramophone to praise Lubimov’s “uncommon sensibility” and “refinements of colouring, articulation and nuance” in playing that “is fluent and even, never mechanical in its brilliance.”

A unique coupling on record of vibrant and impassioned chamber music by the uncleand-nephew Armenian composers.

Playing the 1716 Booth Stradivari, violinist Arabella Steinbacher plays Johannes Brahms’s three Violin Sonatas, as well as the Scherzo he contributed to the FAE Sonata, with a prepossessing tonal command, captured and reproduced by PentaTone’s engineers, who have balanced both performers close up yet communicating a sense of the venue’s spaciousness (the recording took place in September 2000, at the Concertboerderij Valthermond). In the Vivace ma non troppo of Brahms’s First Violin Sonata, Steinbacher mixes strength and tenderness, exhibiting a wide dynamic range that the recorded sound has transmitted to the listeners. Robert Kulek’s introduction and accompanying figures at the second movement’s opening also reverberate warmly in the ambiance underneath Steinbacher’s sound, especially thick and honeyed in these passages (even at times recalling Mischa Elman’s fabled tone).

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 is an exceptional disc. Exceptional both for the music Johannes Brahms’ three violin sonatas contain some of his most lovely writing and the performance French violinist Augustin Dumay and Portuguese pianist Maria Pires project a strong interpretive vision. The interpretation is more lyrical and thoughtful than typical, with somewhat slow tempi generally. This is married to exquisite – and I mean, exquisite – technique from both Pires and Dumay as well as an outstanding sound engineering job from DG. The excellence of this CD is comprehensive.