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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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Alkan Grande Sonate, "Les Quatre Ages", Symphonie Pour Piano Solo
Vincenzo Maltempo
Classical - Released May 2, 2012 | Piano Classics
Booklet
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5 de Diapason
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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
Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique / Brahms Sinfonies 1 and 4: Igor Markevitch
Igor Markevitch
Classical - Released March 3, 2023 | UME - Global Clearing House
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Johannes Brahms: Symphonie No. 1 in C Moll, Op. 68, Symphonie No. 4 in E Moll, Op. 98, Tragische Ouverture, Op. 81, Rhapsodie für Altstimme, Männerchor und Orchester, Op. 53
Carl Bamberger
Classical - Released December 10, 2019 | Mezzoforte
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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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Gramophone Editor's Choice
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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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4F de Télérama -
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5 Sterne Fono Forum Klassik
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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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Diapason d'or
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Nelson Freire: Brahms
Nelson Freire
Classical - Released August 25, 2017 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
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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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Brahms – Reger: Song Transcriptions
Rudolf Buchbinder
Classical - Released March 22, 2024 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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The veteran pianist Rudolf Buchbinder is known best for Haydn and Mozart, but he has the kind of record that has earned him the right to do pretty much what he wants in later life. Here, he plays transcriptions of Brahms songs by Max Reger, items that most listeners will not have heard. Of course, on the one hand, transcriptions were part and parcel of the 19th century scene (although perhaps less so in the song genre); on the other, 28 of these things, deprived of the texts, may sound like a lot, but Buchbinder's program is interesting on the whole. He takes his Brahms songs chronologically, and this yields various insights. There are simple pieces from throughout Brahms' lied output, but most of these songs are not simple, and without the contrast provided by the voice, the listener's attention is directed toward the place of the melody line in a web of polyphony. Consider a song as straightforward as the Wiegenlied, Op. 49, No. 4, the so-called "Brahms Lullaby." There turns out to be plenty going on below, and often above, the melody, holding the listener's interest in a whole new way. The chronological organization gives the listener a unique window into the growing density of Brahms' late style. There is probably no way to know whether Schoenberg and the other members of the Second Viennese School, great admirers of Brahms, heard the masterful treatment of register in these transcriptions, but they certainly might have. A fine offbeat find for Brahms lovers, and indeed those of Reger.© James Manheim /TiVo
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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: Symphonies Nos. 1-4
Mariss Jansons
Classical - Released August 28, 2015 | BR-Klassik
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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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Couperin: Concerts Royaux
Pierre Gallon
Classical - Released March 15, 2024 | harmonia mundi
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François Couperin's Concerts Royaux were keyboard dance suites from 1714, preceding those of the set known as Les Goûts Réunis. Couperin wrote them for a single keyboard but noted that they could also be performed by a small ensemble, and the many available recordings of the pieces have availed themselves of both options. This one by Pierre Gallon and Matthieu Boutineau, however, is unique; it is for two harpsichords, with a few continuo additions from theorbo and Baroque guitar. The suites are presented as versions for two harpsichords; these are not credited to anyone but have been created by the performers. The reasoning for this, as presented in the booklet, draws from the ideas that Couperin, even if he did not suggest this option, clearly imagined the instrumentation as flexible, that Couperin did suggest a two-harpsichord option for the Apothéoses for chamber ensemble, and that harpsichord works by the composer Gaspard Le Roux were said by the composer to be playable on two harpsichords. These factors do not quite prove the point being made by the performance, and this recording might better be regarded as an elaboration on Couperin's music. In some pieces, the two players each perform the bass line, distributing the rest of the music between them, and this creates a rich, monumental sound that differs quite a bit from the usual intimate detail one associates with Couperin. The effect is intensified by Harmonia Mundi's booming church sound environment, which doesn't correspond with what Couperin imagined, either. It is true that those who want the versions Couperin himself approved have plenty of major recordings to choose from, and this one is genuinely novel. The bottom line is that a bit of sampling will inform listeners as to whether they find the approach convincing or not.© James Manheim /TiVo
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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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