Friendship

Album review

As the title suggests, this album celebrates the sometimes-tempestuous friendship between Brahms and Joachim, the great violinist who inspired many of Brahms's works, and to whom the German composer wrote many dedications. The two men knew each other from their youth spent with the Schumanns. Brahms dedicated his first work, the effervescent Piano Sonata in C Major to Joachim, who would return the favour in 1855, shortly before his conversion to Lutheranism, with Hebrew Melodies for Viola and Piano, a musical setting of some verses by Byron.

Placed at the centre of this recording, they reveal both the closeness of language that two friends shared and their common ability to make the most of the viola. It may have been the poor relation of the string family, but Joachim was an excellent virtuoso violist. Thanks to the labours of many great viola players, the 21st century has finally raised up this beautiful instrument and set it alongside the violin and the cello.

This excellent viola programme also includes two wonderful religious songs, Op. 91 (Zwei Gesänge), that Brahms wrote for Joachim and his wife Amalie, as well as the version for viola and piano of the Sonata in F minor, Op. 120 No. 1 originally for clarinet and piano, which was one of Brahms's final compositions.
This story of the two men's friendship is told here in music by a female trio comprising Lena Eckels on viola, Simone Wolff on piano and mezzo-soprano Sophie Harmsen: three excellent German artists who gathered in the city of Bremen to make this recording. © François Hudry/Qobuz