A ride through the tunes with music from the Baroque to the Modern Era

Recorded in August 2022 at concerts given in Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie by the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg under Kent Nagano, this version of Johannes Brahms's celebrated choral masterpiece will come as a surprise to many. The German Requiem is heard not in it's usual seven-movement version, but rather as it was first performed in Bremen Cathedral on 10th April 1868 (Good Friday) under Brahms's direction, without the fifth movement for soprano and choir that was completed later that year. On the other hand there are numerous interludes, instrumental and vocal, secular and sacred, by Bach, Tartini, Schumann and Handel - including pieces that were then regarded as essential parts of a Good Friday concert. Such a programme might seem unusual today, but these musical additions shed new light on Brahms's work, which in this version manifests itself as what Umberto Eco might have described as an 'open work'. Presenting the work in the form heard at the Bremen premiere is more than just a reconstruction: it enriches our understanding of this unique music.

The "Eleven Choral Preludes for Organ" op. 122 were completed by Johannes Brahms between May and June 1896. It was not until later, in 1902, that op. 122 was published posthumously. At the same time, Brahms' op. 122 did not escape the attention of the Italian composer and pianist Ferruccio Busoni, who decided to transcribe six of the eleven choral preludes for piano. Over the course of his life, he transcribed numerous works by various composers for piano, including those by Bach that were intended for organ, harpsichord or violin. It is little known that Max Reger, in addition to his importance as a composer, was also one of the most important arrangers of the works of great colleagues. He arranged works by almost all the great masters, from Mozart to Richard Strauss. Reger always admired the compact form and the almost ascetic compositional discipline of Johannes Brahms. His admiration for the great North German is confirmed by the elaborate transcriptions of the "Five Slow Movements" from his four symphonies. Reger does not write them in a typically pianistic style, but rather he summarizes the entire melodic and harmonic richness in a kind of symphonic script. These transcriptions are the work of a brilliant musical mind who was able to grasp the music as a whole and, based on a complete understanding of the compositions, to present them in a new guise. The arrangements are extremely demanding for the pianist. It is not only a matter of master- ing the sometimes considerable and often far-reaching mass of notes, but also of allowing the themes woven into them to emerge, as is the case in the orchestra through the characteristics of the individual instruments. Brahms' well-known preference for the so-called "conflict rhythms" makes the task even more difficult. The rarities, so rich and demanding in sound and structure, are appearing on recording for the first time and should inspire many friends of the works of these two composers to take a closer look at them.

Composed between 1865 and 1868, Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem has become a repertoire staple for choirs around the world, amateur and professional alike, possibly because it relies so much more on the choir than it's soloists to convey the texts than other works. Brahms chose not to set the Requiem Mass, but rather a collection of biblical texts of his own selection, taken from the Lutheran Bible (hence the 'deutsches'). Rather than a prayer for the dead, Brahms's concern is much more with offering comfort to the bereaved, still on earth. When challenged about the lack of a single reference to Christ in the entire work, Brahms responded, 'I would gladly omit even the word German and simply put Human'. This adds credence to the view that he saw the work in an entirely humanist way, and that the religious overtones of the title and text selection are much more a result of the avowedly Christian culture of his times than a specific decision to express personal belief. Edward Gardner and his Bergen forces are joined by the soloists Johanna Wallroth and Brian Mulligan in this exciting new recording.

The present collection showcases studio and live recordings pianist Nelson Freire made for the SWR between 1968 and 1999. Though Freire was by his own account never really interested in a career and he even reduced considerably the number of live performances at the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, he belongs to the most important pianists worldwide. A natural prodigy, Freire's style is characterised by elegance, charme and finnesse as well as deliberate avoidance of boasting.

BERNSTEIN FAVORITES- ORCHESTRA

Trumpet was meant to have a bright future after Handel and Bach, but history decided otherwise. Relegated to a military signal role with timpani, it had to wait until the later Romantic period to flourish once again. A brainchild of Andrew Balio, this album showcases his own transcriptions of works from the golden age of chamber music, inviting trumpeters out of the cold and into the cozy world of Brahms, Schumann, and Schubert. Pianist John Wilson partners Andrew for these new arrangements of Brahms's clarinet sonatas, Schumann's Adagio and Allegro, and Marchenbilder, and Schubert's lied 'Auf dem Strom', in which tenor Nicholas Phan gives voice to the text. Thanks to Andrew, trumpeters and music lovers can now enjoy an expanded repertoire which invites us into an entirely new soundworld.

BRAHMS: PIANO CONCERTO, VIOLIN

Composed near the end of Brahms's life, these two Sonatas were originally written for clarinet and received their first performance on January 7th, 1895 with Richard Mühlfeld (whose artistry had inspired the composer) and Brahms himself at the piano. However, Brahms always saw them as also playable on the viola, and that version goes further than merely transposing where necessary: for example, some figuration is changed and there is double-stopping, and in a few places the instrument plays where the clarinet is silent.

Both versions are well represented in the current catalogue, though the clarinet one is more numerous than that with viola. Nevertheless, this new disc is welcome. Rivka Golani brings a highly developed tonal flexibility to the music and shows a firm understanding of the style. So, for that matter, does her pianist Konstantin Bogino. Thus Brahms's darkish but often sadly beautiful vision is well realized, and the recording makes a good job of the difficult balancing act for these two instruments; even if the piano's bass has a thickish sound, that is not inappropriate. I question, however, whether the initial Allegro appassionato of the F minor Sonata should not move along just a little more briskly; on the evidence of this playing, Golani is essentially a serious artist who could also have brought more of a smile to the Allegretto grazioso third movement. Still, all is enjoyable and the finale has a splendid positive vigour.

I find Golani too slow in the Allegro amabile first movement of the E flat major Sonata—it is as if she has concentrated on the latter word in Brahms's marking and forgotten the former—and the Allegro appassionato that follows is also more deliberate than usual. But her playing has so much tonal beauty that this leisureliness may perhaps be excused, particularly as this work has no slow movement as such. Again, the finale has Schivung.

Joachim's work dates from 1860 and is here receiving its first recording. It's unremarkable as music (save that the lengthy theme is played just by the piano), and has a style somewhere between Schumann and Elgar plus a gipsy element (thus not unlike Brahms), but this great violinist wrote beautifully for the viola and Golani's playing of the ten longish variations is refined and expressive.

-- Gramophone [9/1992]

This disc was originally available as Conifer CDCF 178.

Includes intermezzo(s) for piano by Johannes Brahms. Soloist: Mikhail Kazakevich.

Wilhelm Furtwängler Conducts Brahms

Classical Music

Classical Music

This superb programme combines the beautiful 'Alto Rhapsody' with the much more rarely performed 'Gesang der Parzen' and the cantata 'Rinadlo' - a work which gives us some idea of how a Brahms opera world would have sounded. This is the third and final volume of Brahms's works for chorus and orchestra, performed by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra under its distinguished Principal Conductor, Gerd Albrecht.