Brahms Piano Quartet

In its new Brahms album, the Notos Quartet crosses the boundary between chamber music and the symphony. Alongside the First Piano Quartet, Op. 25, the four musicians have also recorded an arrangement of Brahms’s Third Symphony, Op. 90, specifically prepared for them by Andreas N. Tarkmann. To a certain extent, Arnold Schoenberg’s arrangement of Brahms’s Op. 25 for full orchestra inspired this idea.

In composing the Quartet No.1 in G min op.25 for piano and strings (and op.26) - his first truly important chamber works - Brahms - being the fervent classicist that he was - looked back to some important models to emulate and renew, he composed his own diptych of quartets with piano with other significant diptychs of pieces for strings and piano in mind: Mozart's Quartets K 478 and K 493 (Mozart's K 478 and Brahms' op. 25 are both in G min), Beethoven's two Trios op.70, Schubert's two Trios op.99 and 100.

In composing the Quartet No.1 in G min op.25 for piano and strings (and op.26) - his first truly important chamber works - Brahms - being the fervent classicist that he was - looked back to some important models to emulate and renew, he composed his own diptych of quartets with piano with other significant diptychs of pieces for strings and piano in mind: Mozart's Quartets K 478 and K 493 (Mozart's K 478 and Brahms' op. 25 are both in G min), Beethoven's two Trios op.70, Schubert's two Trios op.99 and 100.

The idea for this orchestration of the Brahms Piano Quartet in A Major came to me spontaneously in a flash of inspiration while I was coaching chamber music at the Ischia Chamber Music Festival in 2008. I vividly remember the bright blue sea and cloudless sky over Mount Epomeo that morning as I listened to a group play though the first movement of the piece in its original form. As I began to work with them, I found myself speaking to the pianist, as I often do, in orchestral terms. 'Can you try playing the opening phrase more like…. a quartet of hunting horns?' I asked. His playing sounded more convincing with that in mind, but that sound concept had also planted itself firmly in my inner ear. After the coaching I had a bit of free time, and found myself listening to an imaginary orchestral version of the entire first movement emerging from that horn quartet. I was fascinated by the ways in which I thought an orchestral realisation could bring to the fore some the nature imagery and vernacular music that is present in the origina l.

It was something of a surprise to be reminded that this recording was made thirty-eight years ago. I've been re-listening to it and Rattle's later recording with the Berlin Philharmonic recently and found my memories confirmed. The Berliners are a great orchestra, make a sumptuous sound, and Rattle is on fine form. And yet, it is the intensity of the Bournemouth performance that is the more gripping for me: it is constantly on the edge, just as Mahler was as he struggled to get the outline of this intensely personal music onto paper in the last summer of his life.

Richter on the road in Tours France, with no studio in sight, and with a great Russian string quartet in a live performance. This enterprise in thoroughly inspired. Good tempi throughout and nothing drags. There is great interplay between Richter and the Borodins. They milk the lyrical content of the first movement and build the finale to its electrifying finale.