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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.
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La Playlist Classique
Classical Music: 50 of the Best, Radio Musica Clasica, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Johann Strauss II, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms
Classical - Released October 19, 2019 | Armasi
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Brunch Classical Music
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Classical Music: 50 of the Best, Claude Debussy, Edvard Grieg, Johannes Brahms, Johann Sebastian Bach,
Classical - Released March 10, 2020 | Armasi
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Antonín Dvořák: Symphonie du nouveau monde
Philippe Fournier
Classical - Released October 7, 2000 | iMD-ORCHESTRE-CONFLUENCES
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Brahms: Symphonie No. 2 - Schumann: Symphonie No. 4
Charles Munch, Orchestre National de France
Classical - Released January 1, 1998 | naïve classique
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For Clara: Works by Schumann & Brahms
Hélène Grimaud
Classical - Released September 8, 2023 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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Robert Schumann was never more purely Romantic than in his set of piano pieces Kreisleriana, Op. 16. The set is of extramusical, literary inspiration, taking its name from a character in stories by E.T.A. Hoffmann, and it features the explosive imagination of the young Schumann at its best. Schumann announced the work, which he apparently wrote in four days, rather breathlessly to his inamorata, Clara, and more than almost any other work of his, it seems to spill over the boundaries of the short piano piece. Hélène Grimaud has recorded the work before, but she seems to have added intensity this time around. She is nervously excited in the faster virtuosic numbers, but sample No. 4 to hear her marvelous control over the tonal instability that appears in many of these pieces. The Brahms Intermezzi, Op. 117, were also "For Clara," sent to Clara Schumann toward the end of his life; the two had remained friends, and here, in Grimaud's evocation of tempestuous old-school pianism, one is stirred to wonder what Clara sounded like playing this music. The connection of the nine Lieder und Gesänge, Op. 32, of Brahms to Clara is less clear, and the set, with baritone Konstantin Krimmel on the vocals, may seem like an afterthought; the three performances on the album were all made at different places and times. However, taken on its own terms, it is a fine performance of this set, consisting entirely of settings of texts by Eastern poets. Krimmel catches the rather mystical nature of the songs, and Grimaud, with whom he has worked in the past, is effective as an accompanist. This is an important entry in Grimaud's catalog, with a Kreisleriana that is as fine as any.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Pancrace Royer: Surprising Royer, Orchestral Suites
Les Talens Lyriques
Symphonic Music - Released May 5, 2023 | Aparté
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Beyond the neglect of French Baroque music in general, it is a bit hard to understand why composer Pancrace Royer was almost completely unknown until Christophe Rousset came along to champion him, first in harpsichord music and now, with these suites of music drawn from operas, in orchestral music. In the 18th century, Royer was quite well known and admired among others by Rameau, whose music he helped along considerably. Royer certainly inhabited Rameau's stylistic world, but from the evidence here, his music is distinctive and merits the adjective "surprising" that Rousset has attached to it. It is colorful, given to unexpected turns of harmony, and vivid in its evocation of the exotic scenes of French opera. Sample the "Air pour les turcs" ("Air for the Turks") from Zaïde, reine de Grenade, with its crackling percussion. Royer challenged his orchestra with virtuoso ensemble writing in the likes of the "Premier et second tambourins" from Almasis, and Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques step up with precise, vigorous readings that one imagines would have made the composer overjoyed. The inclusion of two alternate versions for movements from Zaïde is also unusual and gives insight into the compositional thinking of the day. Essential for specialists and enthusiasts interested in the French Baroque, this album is a lot of fun for anyone, with only overdone church sound detracting from the overall effect.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Brahms: The Symphonies
Johannes Brahms
Classical - Released April 21, 2017 | BSO Classics
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Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4 & Tragic Overture
Otto Klemperer
Classical - Released June 9, 2023 | Warner Classics
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Brahms : The Complete Solo Piano Works
Geoffroy Couteau
Solo Piano - Released March 18, 2016 | La Dolce Volta
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Nelson Freire: Brahms
Nelson Freire
Classical - Released August 25, 2017 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
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4 étoiles Classica -
5 Sterne Fono Forum Klassik
The title Brahms might seem an odd one for this collection of Brahms piano pieces, containing one piano sonata and an assortment of 12 short pieces, mostly from the end of the composer's life. Yet the program does cover a good deal of Brahms' keyboard thinking: piano compositions, except for variation sets, are sparse during his middle years. The Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5, dates from 1853, when Brahms was 20: it is youthful music par excellence, with five movements and a shifting set of moods that pose interpretive challenges for the pianist. Freire has been playing the sonata since his teenage years, and he manages to make the music sound deliberate and inevitable despite its rather feverish intensity. With the exception of the final Waltz in A flat major, Op. 39, No. 15, Freire plays the rest of the music chronologically. The listener has the sense of being drawn into a vortex of complexity as each work seems to explore new structural possibilities. You could sample almost anywhere, but try the uniquely flexible tonal implications of the first of the four Klavierstücke, Op. 119, a work that shows clearly why the "conservative" Brahms was so beloved by the 12-tone composers to come. The only possible way you might not like Freire's deeply thought-out, precise performances of these is if you like your Brahms on the warmer side, but the dispassionate, investigative way Freire has it is probably the fastest way into these works that really take a lifetime to appreciate. A major Brahms release, with sympathetic engineering from Decca at the Friedrich-Ebert-Halle in Hamburg.© TiVo
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Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre: Céphale et Procris
Reinoud Van Mechelen
Classical - Released February 9, 2024 | Château de Versailles Spectacles
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Berlioz : Symphonie fantastique (Live)
Les Siècles
Classical - Released October 25, 2019 | harmonia mundi
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5 de Diapason
The large collection of antique instruments at Les Siècles' command makes its recordings more than just speculative period exercises, but something approaching musical time travel. Led since 2003 by its founder, François-Xavier Roth, this singular French orchestra has given thrilling historically-informed recreations of the repertoire of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries on vintage instruments that were available to the musicians of the time, crafted by hand, and possessing the unique sonorities and tunings of different regions. For this 2019 album from Harmonia Mundi, Roth and his musicians play Hector Berlioz's hallucinatory Symphonie fantastique and the dramatic overture Les Francs-Juges with marvelous orchestral colors and a striking textural clarity that almost makes their distinctive characteristics seem especially highlighted. However, this recording isn't meant to be a sonic showcase for audiophiles, because the drama, musicality, and visceral excitement of the performances soon override the novelty of instrumentation, and the overall effect of the presentation is a startling reassessment and a refreshing change from the weightier Berlioz of a Thomas Beecham or a Colin Davis. No one could write for brass more blazingly than Berlioz, and his skillful handling of the woodwinds is even more apparent when heard with early Romantic timbres. The ultimate pleasure of this disc, though, is found in the cohesion, agility, and passion of the group's playing, and Roth's confident leadership comes through in his precision and alert attention to details. Highly recommended.
© TiVo
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Brahms: The Final Piano Pieces, Op. 116-119
Stephen Hough
Classical - Released January 3, 2020 | Hyperion
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By the early 1890s, Johannes Brahms began thinking that his career was approaching its end, perhaps because of his growing awareness of his mortality, due to the deaths of several close friends. In spite of that, encouragement from Brahms' publisher Fritz Simrock and a renewed burst of creativity brought about the major works of his final years, which included chamber pieces for clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld; a collection of arrangements of German Folk Songs; the Four Serious Songs; the 11 Chorale Preludes; and the piano pieces published as the Fantasias, Op. 116, the Intermezzos, Op. 117, the Clavierstücke, Op. 118, and the Clavierstücke, Op. 119. This group of 20 keyboard pieces collectively represent the autumnal and sometimes gloomy moods that dominated Brahms' thoughts in his last decade, and have even retroactively colored the overall character his music, suggesting a nostalgic attitude in his work as a whole. Yet there is a balance between melancholy and exuberance in Brahms, and while much can be made of the sorrowful events in his life that influenced him, particularly in the Intermezzos, Op. 117 (which he considered to be lullabies for his sorrows), expressions in the late piano music are artfully conceived and perhaps less a measure of Brahms' emotional state than of his genius. Stephen Hough has recorded Brahms' piano concertos, and some of the chamber works, but this 2019 Hyperion album is his first album since 2001 devoted to Brahms' solo piano works. At this stage of his career, Hough seems to have found the right approach to these character pieces, which can be just as fiery and passionate as they are sad or sentimental. However, just as important are their structures and formal designs, which show an active and lively imagination, especially in Brahms' use of chromatic harmony and his sometimes expansive treatment of the Romantic "miniature."© TiVo
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For Clara: Works by Schumann & Brahms
Hélène Grimaud
Classical - Released September 8, 2023 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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Volodos plays Brahms
Arcadi Volodos
Solo Piano - Released April 7, 2017 | Sony Music Classical Local
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Diapason d'or de l'année -
Diapason d'or -
4F de Télérama -
Gramophone Award -
Gramophone: Recording of the Month -
Le Choix de France Musique -
Choc de Classica -
5 Sterne Fono Forum Klassik
Reviews of this release by Russian pianist Arcadi Volodos, as with some of his others, are split, with a large group of favorable responses and some dissenters. It's often like this with interpretations that are brilliantly executed but fall at one end of a spectrum. In this case, you can certainly find more atmospheric and passionate readings of Brahms piano music. But among those that make you understand why the 12-tone composers loved Brahms the most, not the outer chromatic reaches of Wagner or Strauss, this one is very hard to beat. Much of the music is from the end of Brahms' career, and these pieces are famous for drawing you in with their complexities and never letting you out again. Sample the Intermezzo in B flat minor, Op. 117, No. 2, where the tune is just one of the music's parameters: harmony, register, and dynamics are all tightly controlled, even as the music has a distinctive warm-hearted sadness. In Volodos' reading, there is an uncanny quality that every single note is in its place. At just over 54 minutes, the album is short, but you won't be missing the extra minutes after the feat of concentration that listening to this music entails. In places, Volodos makes Brahms sound a bit like Mompou, the composer whose music put the pianist on the map; it sounds unusual, even odd, but let it connect with you, and it's profound. Sony's production team, working at Berlin's Teldex Studio, creates a suitably inward environment. Very highly recommended.© TiVo
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Brahms: Symphonies Nos 1-4, Piano Quartet No. 1 (Orch. Schoenberg)
Luzerner Sinfonieorchester
Classical - Released April 7, 2023 | Warner Classics
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This is the debut recording with the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester by conductor Michael Sanderling, who recently ascended to the orchestra's podium as of 2023 when the album appeared. A set of Brahms symphonies, a crowded marketplace slot in the extreme, might seem a bold move in these circumstances, but nobody can accuse Sanderling of merely retreading others' steps. His Brahms is broad, slow, and detailed, seemingly opening the works into an expanded view. One attraction here, and one that could well bring buyers to the set on its own, is the rare Arnold Schoenberg orchestration of Brahms' Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25, that concludes the album. Although all the melodic material in the work is Brahms', the work is quite characteristic of Schoenberg in its rich, brash orchestration. Schoenberg, in explaining why he made this version of a Brahms chamber work, said, "It is always very badly played, because the better the pianist, the louder he plays, and you hear nothing from the strings. I wanted once to hear everything, and this I achieved." That statement might serve as well as a general characterization of Sanderling's symphony treatments here. All of his tempos are well on the slow side. The Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98, clocks in at well over 46 minutes, perhaps six minutes slower than average for the work. The rest are similarly measured, with exposition repeats adding to the overall heft. Sanderling fills the spaces with orchestral detail. Sample the opening movement of the Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68, where the slow introduction is atomized into small gestures that do, in his reading, have their parts to play in the music that follows. However, the big tunes, in this symphony's finale and elsewhere, lose some of their impact; the long line is not quite long enough to sustain them. Sanderling is probably at his best in the Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90, with its compact thematic blocks in which he finds unsuspected layers. This new Brahms, also benefiting from the spacious acoustic of the new Orchesterhaus Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, certainly commands attention.© James Manheim /TiVo
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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
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Debussy: Préludes, Livres 1 & 2
Vestard Shimkus
Classical - Released March 31, 2023 | ARTALINNA
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Brahms: Piano Works, Opp. 24, 79, 118 & 119 (Original Edition)
Murray Perahia
Classical - Released November 12, 2010 | Sony Classical
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Gramophone Editor's Choice -
Choc de Classica
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