Brahms Symphonie 4 Mouvement 4 (Mesure 97) for albums to download in True CD Quality (Lossless), 24-Bit Hi-Res

Antoine Tamestit Brahms : Viola Sonatas, Op. 120 - Zwei Gesänge, Op. 91

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Brahms : Viola Sonatas, Op. 120 - Zwei Gesänge, Op. 91

Antoine Tamestit

Chamber Music - Released February 12, 2021 | harmonia mundi

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It's hard to imagine how anything could have been improved upon with this Brahms recital from three of Harmonia Mundi's most sensitive and interesting artists. The programming alone is a work of art: the idea of pairing the viola versions of Brahms's two autumnal Op. 120 Clarinet Sonatas inspired by Meiningen Orchestra clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld, with three further softly intimate works of his showcasing the viola's similarities with the human voice – viola and piano arrangements of Nachtigall from the six Op. 97 Songs (extra resonant, when Brahms described Mühlfeld as the nightingale of the orchestra) and the famous Op. 49 Wiegenlied, followed by the Op. 91 Zwei Gesänge for Voice, Viola and Piano. Then there's the instruments, because for Tamestit and Tiberghien these are just as important to the music's alchemy as the abilities of the performers, and their quest to find the perfect match for the penetrating, multi-shaded tones of Tamestit's Stradivarius viola eventually led them to an 1899 Bechstein piano. The result was two instruments capable of a range of colours and roundness of sound across all registers and through even the most virtuosic of passages; and that's precisely what you hear across the resultant lyrically tender, natural-feeling readings, because beyond the hand in glove chamber partnering you're hearing, their respective tones are both alive with colouristic complexities and verily glowing. Then, beyond being simply delicious, the vocal quality Tamestit draws out from the famous Wiegenlied melody serves as the perfect overture to the programme's Zwei Gesänge – shaped icing on the cake – yet another perfect combination, Tamestit's lines lovingly encircling and dovetailing with Goerne's own richly warm, gentle baritone, the polished Teldex Studio engineering casting them on satisfyingly equal footings with each other, with the piano just slightly behind. In short, absolutely gorgeous. © Charlotte Gardner/Qobuz

Serge Baudo, Czech Philharmonic Honegger: Symphonies Nos 1-5, Pacific 231, Mouvement symphonique No. 3

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Honegger: Symphonies Nos 1-5, Pacific 231, Mouvement symphonique No. 3

Serge Baudo, Czech Philharmonic

Classical - Released January 1, 1991 | Supraphon a.s.

Otto Klemperer Brahms, Schumann, Mendelssohn

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Brahms, Schumann, Mendelssohn

Otto Klemperer

Classical - Released April 22, 2024 | Warner Classics

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This digital-only Otto Klemperer collection—taken from a 95-disc box set from Warner Classics—contains his complete EMI repertoire. It presents a rich sampling of the German composer and conductor's interpretations of Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Schubert, but also serves to illustrate his only real shortcoming of Klemperer—his limiting his recordings, for the most part, to composers of central Europe.That quibble notwithstanding, this is a must-have set for collectors—not just Klemperer aficionados, but anyone wishing to hear superb renditions of the masterpieces in the set by one of the 20th Century's great conductors. Although Klemperer claimed to dislike recording, you would never guess it listening to these performances; the only explanation for his paradoxical claim being that he held to the same high standards in the studio as he did in the concert hall.Particularly enjoyable in the set is Mendelssohn's incidental music for Midsummer Night's Dream. Klemperer conducts the numbers with the requisite light and graceful touch that the music demands. Somewhat of a rarity in this recording are the vocal portions being sung in Shakespearean English.Also outstanding is a performance of the Schumann Piano Concerto with Annie Fischer as soloist, though it suffers somewhat from its rather dull recorded sound. All the works in this set, though, are beautifully performed. Adding to the listener's enjoyment are the expert remasterings done by Warner Classics' engineers in 24-bit/192 kHz sound. © Anthony Fountain/Qobuz

Mark Viner Alkan: Paraphrases, Marches & Symphonie for Solo Piano, Op. 39

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Alkan: Paraphrases, Marches & Symphonie for Solo Piano, Op. 39

Mark Viner

Classical - Released January 29, 2021 | Piano Classics

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The latest volume in a revelatory Alkan series from an English pianist with a string of critically acclaimed albums of rare repertoire from the Golden Age of the piano virtuoso to his credit. Perhaps the most enigmatic figure in the history of music as a whole, let alone the 19th century, Charles-Valentin Alkan remains one of the most intriguing and alluring names among the pantheon of pianist-composers. According to Franz Liszt, Alkan possessed the finest technique he had ever seen yet preferred the life of a recluse. The outstanding masterpiece of the album is the Symphonie for solo piano which Alkan drew from his set of 12 Studies, Op. 39. It opens with an Allegro which is one of the composer’s most darkly impassioned conceptions, in which declamatory rhetoric, passionate outbursts and towering climaxes are all bound by a tightly organised structure. The piano writing is distinctly orchestral in nature, hence the ‘symphonic’ designation, demanding that the intrepid soloist make his or her way through towering conglomerations of sometimes ten note chords, thick, chordal tremoli and volleys of double octaves: only fully accredited virtuosi need apply! The Symphonie is placed on this album as the climax to a sequence of grand marches conceived on a similarly grand scale. They include the Three Cavalry Marches, Op. 39, which find Alkan at his most concise, in the Berliozian No. 1, his most eccentric (the trio of No. 2) and whimsical (No. 3). Like them, the Marche funèbre, Op. 26 bears witness to Alkan’s ability to channel a latent and, at times, menacing power through material of the slightest substance. The following Marche triomphale, Op. 27 is a massive, swaggering affair, in contrast to the ruminative melancholy of the opening paraphrase Op. 45 on a poem by Legouvé set in a cemetery and cast in Alkan’s most elegiac vein. A profound sadness also inflects the opening section of the composer’s ingenious instrumental setting of Psalm 137, ‘By the waters of Babylon’. The booklet contains an excellent essay on Alkan and his works by the artist himself. © Piano Classics