Classical Music

This final release in the Complete Songs of Brahms series, featuring soprano Sophie Rennert, epitomizes all the familiar virtues that have distinguished the project: Perfectly judged performances, intelligently planned recitals, informative booklet notes and brilliant accompaniments from Graham Johnson, a true master of the art.

Soprano Harriet Burns makes her recording debut on volume eight of Hyperion's Complete Brahms Songs series. The program's selections provide the ideal showcase for Burns's voice and Graham Johnson's customary scholarly booklet notes are an indispensable companion.

TOSCANINI CONDUCTS LIGHT CLASS

BRAHMS, BEETHOVEN HEIFETZ, PI

TOSCANINI COLLECTION VOL 26 -

PIERRE MONTEUX EDITION VOL 3 -

Rubinstein Collection, Vol 21 - Brahms: Sonata No. 3 in F M

"Today Rubinstein is best remembered as the ideal Chopin interpreter. He recorded much of the composer’s output several times over, first for EMI in the 1930s, in recordings many still treasure for their spontaneity and verve. For RCA, his monophonic Chopin recordings from the 1940s and their stereo remakes remain the standards by which other pianists are judged. And yet despite that identification with Chopin, Rubinstein always claimed Brahms was his favorite composer, and his golden-toned RCA recordings of the Op. 5 Sonata, the Ballades, and selected samples of Brahms’ autumnal late works retain their primacy, as do his Brahms recordings in partnership with chamber groups and outstanding soloists like Heifetz and Henryk Szeryng."

-- Dan Davis, Listen Magazine [5, 2009]

Rubinstein Collection, Vol. 73: Brahms Piano Trio No. 3; Sch

V3: RUBINSTEIN COLLECTION

Barry Douglas’s complete Brahms cycle for solo piano is now available as a unique box set. It contains all the six widely acclaimed volumes of the series, each disc planned and presented as a stand-alone mixed recital, along with the original booklets. Completed within the course of five years, the series was seen by BBC Music as ‘a triumph of Brahmsian thoughts’. It offers ‘beautifully manicured playing’ (Pianist), ‘captures Douglas’s sound perfectly’ (International Piano), and will ‘leave you a different person’ (Gramophone).

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Reviews excerpts of some of individual volumes contained in this set:

Brahms: Works for Solo Piano, Vol. 6

His hefty, full-bodied sound, built from the bottom up, befits the mellow power of Brahms’s sound world.

– Gramophone

Brahms: Works for Solo Piano, Vol. 5

Douglas's powerful tone and serious demeanour captures the composer's uncompromising side; yet there's a sense of flow that makes the intermezzos generous and warm without veering towards emotional indulgence.

– BBC Music Magazine

Brahms: Works for Solo Piano, Vol. 4

He comes fully alive throughout the C major Sonata. His proportioned rubatos in the first movement's second theme and broodingly sustained Andante imbue the unwieldy textures with colour and variety.

– Gramophone

Also available:

Brahms: Works for Solo Piano, Vol. 1
Brahms: Works for Solo Piano, Vol. 2
Brahms: Works for Solo Piano, Vol. 3

Classical Music

These performances are also included on Sony's 10-disc set "Bruno Walter
Edition Volume 3" - Sony Classical 66248.

Brahm's viola sonatas, composed in the last few years of his life, have become cornerstones of that instrument's repertoire. They are what we regard as "the" genuine romantic viola sonata reflecting the late Brahms' substantial and richly emotional musical world. The Two Songs with viola and piano pay tribute to the friendship between the composer and the celebrated violinist, Joseph Joachim. Besides viola player P�ter B�rsony this recording features the fabulous pianist P�ter Frankl and the opera-singer, popular with the audiences of the most reputed concert halls, Ildik� Koml�si. P�ter B�rsony is a professor at Franz Liszt Academy of Music and Kunstuniversitat Graz. He regularly gives concerts all over the globe, both as a soloist and in chamber music partnerships.