Brahms
graham.rickson
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2, Strauss: Burleske Joseph Moog (piano), Deutsche Radio Philharmonie/Nicholas Milton (Onyx)It's not you, it's me. That’s probably what I'd say to Brahms in attempting to explain why I generally prefer his craggy D minor piano concerto to its even longer sequel. That the two works are so different is a sign of Brahms's multifaceted genius, the B flat concerto's serene magnificence a happy reminder that growing older doesn’t necessarily mean becoming grumpier and terser. I've listened to this performance a lot over the past few days, and perhaps, at last, I'm Read more ...
graham.rickson
Brahms: Clarinet Sonatas, Janáček: Sonata (arr. Brill) Shirley Brill, Jonathan Aner (piano) (Hänssler Classic)Brahms's pair of clarinet sonatas are the epitome of autumnosity, were such a word to exist. Pipe-and-slippers music, which isn't meant to sound disparaging. If you’ve endured a long and tiring day, few chamber works possess such consolatory clout. Clarinettist Shirley Brill knows exactly when to tone things down: the F minor sonata’s opening a beguiling study in introspection, the soft, woody tone balm to the ears. But she's alive to Brahms's occasional sunnier moments, the Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
Sonata no 1 – Sonata no 2 – Sonata no 3 – that’s barely a recital programme, it’s just a list. Fortunately, violinist Christian Tetzlaff and pianist Lars Vogt (pictured below by Neda Navae) have good musical reasons for presenting the Brahms violin sonatas in chronological order. The three works are similar in style, but the mood changes subtly from one to the next, and this performance at Wigmore Hall felt like a journey, from the nebulous but lyrical world of the First Sonata through to the more dynamic and dramatic Third.Tetzlaff and Vogt have a long acquaintance with the Brahms sonatas. Read more ...
graham.rickson
Brahms: Symphony No. 2, Tragic Overture, Academic Festival Overture Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen/Paavo Järvi (RCA)Paavo Järvi and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie’s scintillating Beethoven cycle hasn't received the acclaim it deserves in the UK. Seek it out forthwith, and you'll feel compelled to invest in this first installment of their Brahms cycle. The orchestral sound is still pretty rich, the strings numbering over 30. Wind details emerge without effort, with principal flautist Bettina Wild a stand-out. Flexible tempi allow Järvi to really engage with Brahms's long opening Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
The Vienna Philharmonic makes a beautiful sound, no question about that: the question is what to do with it. Michael Tilson Thomas has some ideas, but they are mostly low-key. He is currently touring with the orchestra, and seems to have been chosen as a safe pair of hands, offering elegant and lyrical interpretations, but without any extravagance. The result was a concert that was all about the orchestra, and although the players had a few rough patches, it fully justified their world-class standing.Even so, it was often hard to shake the feeling that Tilson Thomas was playing it safe. His Read more ...
David Nice
Last night was one of those rare occasions when I'd rather have heard Respighi's gaudy-brilliant Roman Festivals than Brahms's Violin Concerto. It wasn't just that concerts like Charles Dutoit's 2014 Prom had shown us that the Italian's Roman trilogy can actually work as a sequence when Riccardo Chailly was offering us only two of the three. Leonidas Kavakos simply didn't have the consistency to thread the lyrical with the virtuosic aspects and say something new about the Brahms staple, and he was surprisingly subdued at times. But then so was the orchestra in the tone-poems, beautiful of Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
Before reuniting us in high spirits with a pair of much-loved old friends, Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante and Brahms's Second Symphony, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen under Paavo Järvi at the Proms took us into a darker, and unexpectedly affecting, place. Written for the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Flamma by Järvi’s fellow-Estonian Erkki-Sven Tüür evokes the mysterious, and terrifying, power of fire with a nod to its sacred role in Aboriginal culture.In June, just on the other side of Kensington from the Royal Albert Hall, Londoners witnessed and felt that power in the most horrific Read more ...
David Nice
Romantic concerto, contemporary work, classical symphony: it's a common format at the Proms, but not usually in that order. Both David Sawer's 1997 firework The Greatest Happiness Principle and Haydn's ever-radical Symphony No. 99, sharing a light-filled second half, would normally be reserved as what composer Anders Hillborg once told me is known in America as "parking-lot music", taking the opening slot.The idea here was to move from dark and steaky Brahms upwards into Haydn's heaven, but as it turned out there was plenty of dancing radiance in this unusual, often exquisite interpretation Read more ...
graham.rickson
Brahms: Piano Concertos Sunwook Kim (piano), Hallé/Sir Mark Elder (Hallé)Compare the openings of Brahms’s two piano concertos and you'd be mistaken for thinking they were by different composers. The earlier work begins with the fiercest of orchestral growls, the piano waiting a full five minutes before entering. No. 2 starts with a soft, serene horn call, immediately answered by solo piano. It's tempting to see them as portrayals of youthful impetuosity and serene maturity respectively, though they’ve much in common, besides extravagant length. I'll confess to preferring No. 1’s darker Read more ...
Robert Beale
The world premiere of a symphony by a British composer – Huw Watkins – was the chief attraction in the latest Hallé programme with Sir Mark Elder at the Bridgewater Hall. The other music on the programme, however, held interest and indeed created a foil to Watkins’ work.But first to his Symphony. Anyone looking for a contribution to a perceived “tradition” of British symphony writing would be hard put to place this one. It is of itself: one of a kind. Granted, it’s written for a fairly conventional large orchestra, but with nothing to frighten the horses in sound effect terms. Watkins can Read more ...
David Nice
Traditional musical formats rarely suit the individual talent, but the highly-motivated player always finds a way. I first got to talk to Alec Frank-Gemmill in the very sociable surroundings of the Pärnu Festival in Estonia, a gathering most musicians describe as the highlight of their year, with the phenomenal Estonian Festival Orchestra brought together by Paavo Järvi as its core. Frank-Gemmill's secure base is the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, another army of unusual generals. His solo engagements take him to extraordinary places, and thanks to the long-term support of the Borletti-Buitoni Read more ...
David Nice
"Late Style", the theme and title of pianist Jonathan Biss's three-concert miniseries, need not be synonymous with terminal thoughts of death. This recital ranged from introspection (Brahms), radiant simplicity (Schumann) and aphoristic minimalism (Kurtág) to robust self-assertion (the end of Chopin's Polonaise-Fantaisie, Brahms again), all of it guided by strength of intellect. Unfortunately the crespuscular, coffin-like interior of Milton Court's Concert Hall, even less attractive than the Queen Elizabeth Hall of memory and devoid of any floral touch, made any struggle for the light Read more ...