Brahms op 105

One of the greatest string quartets of the 20th-century, the - 100% Austrian - Alban Berg Quartett remains famous for their unsurpassable renditions of the great Viennese masters. The ensemble notably put on record the supreme Beethoven cycle twice, once in studio, once in the Wiener Konzerthaus. Enjoy large excerpts of these milestone recordings, coupled with late masterpieces of Schubert (the Trout Quintet featuring Elisabeth Leonskaja, the quintet with two cellos featuring Heinrich Schiff…)

Following their acclaimed recording of songs by Robert Schumann, the baritone and piano duo Simon Wallfisch and Edward Rushton return to Resonus Classics with an evocative selection of songs by Johannes Brahms. Entitled Songs of Loss and Betrayal, this intoxicating programme sees Brahms using his settings of poetry as a powerful channel for his own feelings, recalling his own personal memories of unrequited love, loss and betrayal.

This first volume of Brahms’ complete songs spans a period of nearly 25 years. A prolific composer of Lieder, Brahms’ adherence to traditional form was accompanied by a modern approach to compositional style. Thematically, most songs explore ideas of love, loneliness and solitude, perfectly exemplified by the Vier Gesänge, Op. 43. In a similar way the Sechs Lieder, Op. 86 share a common theme of a farewell to life. This volume contains some of his greatest songs, including Die Mainacht, as well as little-known jewels such as Versunken.

This is the romantic story of a three-way love-affair told to us in music. We know that the young Brahms, as beautiful as a star, made a very noticed irruption within the couple Schumann. "Arrival of Brahms, a genius! Notes Robert in his diary with an extraordinary intuition. The sequel is told by Shuichi Okada on violin and Clément Lefebvre on piano, two young musicians of the National Conservatory of Music of Paris, co-producer of the present, where they deftly weave the links between the three characters. Schumann's First Sonata in A minor, Op. 105, opens fire, followed by two excerpts from the famous Sonata F-A-E, composed by Schumann, Brahms and Dietrich, the latter unfortunately being systematically left out by the violinists. Caught in the vice between the two men who love him, here is Clara with his Three Romances, Op. 22 which precedes the very melancholy Sonata No. 1, Op. 78, "Regen-Sonate" by Brahms. The music gathered here speaks better than words of how the three composers respond to one another and become a kind of common language, that of the impulses of the heart, of the outpouring of feelings and the unspoken.

Although the profound soul-stirring that sits at the very core of the Sapphische Ode only partially translates to a solo cello, Brahms’s skill as the mellowest of melodists and Mischa Maisky’s warming sound palette still manage to convey some of its poetic essence. My main problem here is not with the transcriptions – most of them work rather well – or, indeed, with Maisky’s tone, but with a manner of phrasing that is too ‘clean’ for what should be a soaring top line.