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.

This is Volume 1 in a new series devoted to the Works for Solo Piano by Johannes Brahms, starting with a selection of highly personal collections of Capriccios, Intermezzi, Ballades, a Romance, and Rhapsodies. The series also marks the first major project of the internationally acclaimed pianist Barry Douglas as an exclusive Chandos artist. Since winning the Gold Medal at the 1986 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow, Douglas has established a major international career, and his reputation as a pianist and conductor continues to grow. Douglas was the soloist in the 2011 recording of Nino Rota's Concerto soir�e (CHAN 10669), of which International Piano said: 'For pianophiles, the headline message is undoubtedly "Barry's back". a complete Brahms series beckons, for which this definitely whets the appetite.'

BRAHMS: STRING QUARTET NO 3, C

BRAHMS: PIANO CONCERTO NO 2 B

Classical Music

[I] must say that I much liked the warmth and generosity of feeling that Bruno Walter brings to it. Fournier is quite magnificent and the orchestra respond with playing of genuine eloquence and feeling. Francescatti, of course, is not a violinist to all tastes: JN spoke of his "wiry, extrovert performance", for which he did not really care, though he admired the performance in every other respect. To my mind his playing lacks real inner repose and his tone here tends to be chilly. However, generally speaking, this is a most satisfying reading and the orchestra produce glorious tone.

-- Gramophone [3/1974, reviewing the Double Concerto]

Szell's performances are very satisfying indeed. His Brahms is robust in strong movements, yet expressive in quiet ones, even if not so deeply embtional as we hear from some conductors. He practically never allows any mannerisms of interpretation, 'points' that can become so tiresome with repeated playing of a record, yet interpretations are never without character... As to the playing, it is very fine; and it is good to be reminded again of this orchestra's soaring violins, its distinguished solo playing, its corporate discipline and rhythm. Very thrilling Brahms.

-- Gramophone [10/1973, reviewing these recordings on LP]

Sibelius's lines flow in a rich, warm glow of tone -- the whole concerto takes wings not, perhaps, as never before, but certainly as very seldom before. The Brahms is given a thorough-going romantic approach, full of feeling but also very carefully considered.

...[A] superlative version of the Sibelius... The performance Francescatti gives of the Sibelius is, technically, an impossible one: not even Heifetz plays the end of the first movement dead in tune, so it can't be done! but Francescatti does it. He also does everything else that can't be done with this concerto (as well, beginning to take things for granted, as everything that can); Sibelius's lines flow in a rich, warm glow of tone, his rhythms pulse, and, again, his chords are in tune. The orchestra are along with Francescatti, and they, too, have a rich quality of string tone and a pulsing rhythm; indeed the whole concerto takes wings not, perhaps, as never before, but certainly as very seldom before.

-- Gramophone [10/1965, reviewing the original LP release of the Sibelius]

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Francescatti himself is in splendid form. He has a bad patch just before the G major episode in the finale, but otherwise his intonation is good and his tone as sweet as ever. The slow movement is rather more expressive than usual, the finale rather more fiery. Much of the credit for this must go to the conductor, Leonard Bernstein, who can get from an orchestra a degree of rubato usually expected only of pianists playing Chopin. The orchestral introduction to the slow movement is an example. Some will find the way Bernstein points the end of each two-bar phrase too mannered for their taste, but, apart from the fact that it's clever to get an orchestra to phrase so sensitively, he certainly matches the style of the solo playing. In the first movement there are no tricks to interrupt the flow of the whole, and the music is played with impressive breadth and understanding. The cadenza is Joachim's. This is without doubt one of the best available versions of the Brahms Violin Concerto, and if you like a thorough-going romantic approach, full of feeling but also very carefully considered, this may well be the one you will like best.

-- Gramophone [12/1963, reviewing the original LP release of the Brahms]

Brahms: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1, 2 & 3

This album was nominated for the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental
Soloist Performance (without Orchestra).