Eto Bieri And Meta4*, Johannes Brahms Gérard Pesson Salvatore Sciarrino – Quasi Morendo

The second album in Lars Vogts Johannes Brahms concerto series with the Royal Northern Sinfonia includes Brahms 2nd Piano Concerto combined with a solo piano work, Handel Variations Op. 24, which was dedicated to Clara Schumann by the composer. Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 is a romantic 4-movement concerto written two decades after its predecessor and one of the cornerstones in the concerto repertoire. This remarkable opus with a great number of beautiful solo passages and with a duration of over 45 minutes has been interpreted by numerous pianists since its premiere in 1881. In this album, Vogt performs the concerto conducting from the keyboard.

Pianists Martha Argerich and Nelson Freire are stupendous virtuosos, and there's nothing in this recording of their 2009 Salzburg recital of staggeringly difficult works they cannot play. They know each other so well as old duo piano partners that their playing is stunning in its unity, but their distinctive individuality also comes across. What's most impressive about this recital is how completely Argerich and Freire have made this music their own. Brahms' Haydn Variations sound freer and fresher, more playful, and more profound than ever. Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances are thrillingly rhapsodic, rapturous, and dramatic. Schubert's Grand Rondeau is more lyrical, intimate, and graceful than usual, and Ravel's La Valse more ecstatic and apocalyptically over-the-top frightening than in any comparable recordings, including Argerich's own earlier releases. Captured in wonderfully clear yet wholly present digital sound, the performances on this disc will be compulsory listening for anyone who loves music, any music.

This duo set unites all of Brahms’ Piano Trios, masterpieces of the genre, in performances of integrity and beauty from the Trio Fontenay.

In 2019, when Alexandre Kantorow, at the age of 22, became the first French pianist to win the Gold Medal at the Tchaikovsky competition, his programme included no less than three works by Johannes Brahms. Two of these, Piano Sonata No. 2 and the Rhapsody in B minor, he went on to record for release on his previous, highly praised recital disc, which was awarded distinctions such as Gramophone’s Editor’s Choice, Diapason d’Or, and Choc de Classica. The Brahms interpretations won Kantorow particular praise – the Guardian (UK) described them as ‘magisterial’ while the website ResMusica placed his sonata ‘among the great reference recordings of the piece – if not the modern one.’ There is much to look forward to, then, when Kantorow releases an all-Brahms album with a playing time of no less than 85 minutes.

Lars Vogt continues his series of concerto recordings with the Royal Northern Sinfonia with this new recording of Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) First Piano Concerto together with Four Ballades (Op. 10) for solo piano. As in previous albums, Lars Vogt conducts from the keyboard. The evolution of Brahms 1st Piano Concerto took several steps. Originally conceived to become a Sonata for Two Pianos through orchestration it was developed into a four-movement Symphony until reaching into its final form of a Piano Concerto in three movements. During the process, which lasted from 1854 to 1856, some movements were also discarded and replaced by new material.

Johannes Brahms was not a composer who showed much confidence early on in his career, at least as far as large-scale orchestral forms were concerned. Take for instance what we know to be his Piano Concerto No. 1, which premiered in 1859. This work began as a sonata for two pianos, and then Brahms considered developing it into a symphony. But the shadow of Beethoven's nine essays in the symphonic form dogged Brahms so much that his First Symphony didn't appear for almost two decades. It finally emerged into this turbulent and elongated D Minor concerto and, despite receiving a fairly frigid reception at its premiere, it is a work that has come to be seen as Brahms' first true large-scale orchestral masterpiece.

Brahms' works for piano open and close his career as a composer. In his earliest sets of variations, especially those of Op. 9, the melody is of primary importance, and Brahms clings to it while freely changing the harmony. His later studies of Beethoven, however, led to his transformation of the melody into something new, adhering to the theme's basic phrase structure and harmonic pattern. As had Bach in his "Goldberg" Variations and Beethoven in the "Diabelli" Variations, Brahms, in the Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Händel, Op. 24, constructed a sprawling masterwork ……..

Johannes Brahms - Piano concerto No. 1
Artur Rubinstein, piano / Chicago Symphony Orchestra / Fritz Reiner
SACD ISO (2.0): 765 MB | 24B/88,2kHz Stereo FLAC: 840 MB | Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: RCA Red Seal "Living Stereo" # 82876-66378-2 RE1 | Country/Year: US 2005, 1955
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic

…In essence, this is glorified stereo with remarkable presence – one feels quite close to Rubinstein, & the CSO seems only feet away – but there is no additional surround sound depth. For the sake of authenticity, this is just as well, & Rubinstein & Reiner at least are not misrepresented through creative engineering. One may regret, however, that this SACD has no bonus tracks & find that it offers less value than other titles in the line.

Jennifer Pike, who won the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition at the tender age of 12, appears to have survived the perils of prodigyhood and entered her early twenties with musical intelligence intact. Here she offers a terrific program of music from the middle of the 19th century; all of it is abstract, but it brings vividly to mind the crucial trio of creative figures who met in the early 1850s: the ailing Robert Schumann, his musically frustrated wife Clara, and the young Johannes Brahms, mooning over the latter. The Brahms Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 78, was written some years after that, but it seems to hark back to that time, not least in its dedication to Felix Schumann, Robert and Clara Schumann's youngest child.