Dvorak: The Wild Dove (Holoubek); Brahms: Symphony No. 1
Fuga Libera
CD
$20.99Oct 23, 2026
Philzuid's eighth album is a live recording of Antonin Dvorak's The Wild Dove and Johannes Brahms's Symphony No. 1. Dvorak was deeply fond of the poetry of his compatriot Karel Erben. The Wild Dove is one of four compositions in which Dvorak drew inspiration from Erben's poetry. Brahms spent more than two decades working on his first symphony, ultimately producing what would become his magnum opus. Both works are performed by the orchestra under the direction of chief conductor Duncan Ward.
The 15 romances from Ludwig Tieck's Magelone represent Johannes Brahms' only true song cycle. With his reputation as an ideal accompanist it is clear that Brahms was extremely familiar with the examples of his predecessors Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann, and as such was able to convey an authenticity of feeling with this work. Set in medieval times, Die schone Magelone is a wonderfully epic yarn in which Count Peter falls in love and elopes with the fair Magelone, leading to disaster and dramas equaling that of any romantic opera.
A recognised specialist in the music of Robert Schumann (he recorded the complete works for solo piano between 2000 and 2010 for Alpha Classics), the French pianist eric Le Sage has devised this programme as a tribute to those who loved Schumann and to the woman he loved: Clara Wieck, of course - who would go on to become Clara Schumann despite her father's opposition to their marriage - but also Johannes Brahms, Gabriel Faure and Camille Saint-Saëns. Alongside their Variations on a Theme by Schumann, we find music by Robert, who also wrote Variations on a Theme by Clara Schumann, as well as two piano transcriptions of his Lieder, including the famous Du bist wie eine Blume, completed the day before their wedding.
A city as a soundscape: On their new GENUIN album, violinist Eva Wetzel and pianist Antonio Di Dedda invite listeners to embark on a musical journey of discovery through Hamburg. Spanning composers from Johannes Brahms to Sofia Gubaidulina and Alfred Schnittke, the program blends the familiar with the rarely heard, revealing a multifaceted panorama of Hamburg's musical life from the 19th century to the present day. Guided by a keen sense of connection and context, they craft a musical city tour whose colorful and nuanced interpretation brings the many facets of this rich musical landscape into vivid relief.
This recording explores Brahms' masterpieces through the lens of historical performance practice, restoring lost expressive technical traditions such as rubato, portamento and tempo flexibility. Performed on period instruments by the Nieuwe Philharmonie Utrecht led by specialist Johannes Leertouwer, the album reveals a sound world of striking contrasts, dramatic freedom and orchestral transparency going far beyond modern conventions.
Stranger Things - Piano Works From a Young Refugee’s Backpac
Navona
CD
$16.99Oct 02, 2026
On STRANGER THINGS, pianist and composer Inna Faliks reflects on the musical forces that have shaped her artistic voice. Childhood compositions written just before emigrating from Odesa appear alongside works by Arnold Schoenberg and Johannes Brahms, tracing a path from Romantic tradition to the expressive freedoms of early modernism. Two of Faliks' own compositions set the stage for a program where memory, discovery, and creative identity converge - revealing how the unexpected often guides an artist's journey.
Like Mozart's, the two string quintets of Brahms are scored for two violins, two violas and cello. The choice is characteristic. The register of the violas and the richness of texture that such an instrumentation can impart, whether in chamber music or in orchestral writing, was very typical of Brahms, and reflected in his music for the piano. He had first attempted the form in 1862, using two cellos, as Schubert had done, but had destroyed it, replacing it first with an arrangement for two pianos, and later, in a final version, as a piano quintet. Brahms had intended his String Quintet in G major, Op. 111, as his last chamber music composition. He wrote it in the summer of 1890 at Bad Ischl, following his usual custom of composing during summer holidays spent away from the city. It was, in the event, to be followed by four further compositions, the Clarinet Trio, the Clarinet Quintet, and two Clarinet Sonatas, the last also known in an effectively autumnal version for viola, an instrument offered in the other works as an alternative to the clarinet. The G major Quintet was first performed in Vienna on 11th November in the year of it's composition. It starts with a movement derived from sketches for a fifth symphony, allowing the cello an orchestrally conceived first subject. For the second subject Brahms turns to Vienna for inspiration. There is a shift to B flat major in the central development, further modulation leading to the return of the original key and thematic material in recapitulation. The D minor slow movement allows free variations on the opening material, until the theme returns in a simpler form, originally played by the first viola. The third movement opens in a melancholy G minor, the feeling dispelled by a G major trio section, which has the last word, after the re-appearance of the G minor material. The quintet ends with a Vivace ma non troppo presto, a rondo that finds a place for much else that is thoroughly Austrian or Austro-Hungarian in mood, ending in an energetic Hungarian czárdás.
Musical Journey: Germany - Bavarian Lakes And Schloss Herrenchiemsee
Naxos AudioVisual
DVD
$13.99Mar 30, 2010
GERMANY
The Places
Bavaria has a place of its own in Germany, both geographically and culturally. The tour stars with the Alpine lake known as Königssee and explores the surrounding landscape, including the Berchtesgaden National Park and the gardens of Ludwig II's answer to Versailles, his grandiose Schloss Herrenchiemsee. The tour ends with the Chiemsee, its islands and its tranquil waters.
The Music
The music for the tour is by Johannes Brahms and his colleague and collaborator, the violinist Joseph Joachim. Brahms' Second Symphony, which accompanies the earlier parts of the tour, was described by some contemporaries as Brahms' Pastoral Symphony and provides, in its generally cheerful serenity, an apt accompaniment to views of the Bavarian countryside. Joachim's Overture In memoriam Heinrich von Kleist, written probably in the same year as Brahms' symphony, 1877, commemorates the centenary of the birth of the great German writer.
Picture format: NTSC 4:3 Sound format: Dolby Digital / DTS Surround Region code: 0 (worldwide) Running time: 50 mins No. of DVDs: 1
The Piano Quartet No. 2 in A major, Op. 26, written during the same period, had it's first performance in Vienna on 29th November 1862 by the same performers, in a concert in which Brahms played his Handel Variations and keyboard works by Bach and by Schumann. The concert followed shortly after Brahms had received the disappointing news of the appointment of Julius Stockhausen as conductor of the Hamburg Philharmonic, a position for which he had hoped. In a letter home from Vienna, however, he was able to report the sympathetic reception of his new piano quartet and his success with the audience as a pianist. Hanslick, who had followed Brahms's career with close interest, still had reservations, but Clara Schumann preferred the quartet to it's immediate predecessor. In 1870 the publisher Simrock asked Brahms for a four-hand piano arrangement of both quartets. He agreed to supply these, asking that his name as arranger should be included. Simrock did not agree to this last request, and printed the four-hand piano version of the Quartet in G minor without this acknowledgement and with many mistakes, as the proofs had not been sent to the composer for correction. This led Brahms to delay the arrangement of the second quartet until 1872. He had at first asked for a fee of fifteen Friedrichsdor, having received only twelve for each original composition, but was not pleased to receive in 1872 only the earlier agreed fee. His complaint persuaded Simrock to send a further fifteen Friedrichsdor. The work, which is admirably suited to piano duet, is of some length, and makes wide use of sonata form. The opening subject has two elements, a chordal theme and a winding thematic element first heard from the cello. The second subject that follows is replete with the composer's habitual cross-rhythms. The central development unusually includes three variations of the first theme, before it's return in recapitulation. The slow movement, Poco Adagio, and originally scored at first with muted strings, offers a lyrical principal theme, the strings unmuted on it's return, after the contrasting secondary material. The extended Scherzo, unusually in sonata form, has a D minor Trio that uses thematic material from the Scherzo in it's canonic writing. The quartet ends with another sonata-form movement, it's rhythmic first subject with touches of the Hungarian. It makes a splendid and complementary ending to a work that wears the unmistakable stamp of Brahms throughout. Brahms completed his sixteen Waltzes, Op. 39, in 1865, publishing them in a piano duet version in 1866 and a version for solo piano the following year. He dedicated the work to Eduard Hanslick, the genre and dedication both, perhaps, a tribute to Vienna, where he had been welcomed. In 1897 the publisher Rieter- Biedermann issued a two-piano version of five of the waltzes, included in the present recording.
Thomas Dausgaard, the enormously talented conductor, continues here with his quest for recording the mainstream symphonic repertoire with an orchestra, smaller than the usual today. His journey has become a considerable success. What one possibly misses in string sound "thickness" is more than well compensated for by the added transparency, and the almost chamber-music-type listening by the orchestral members. As a matter of fact, Dausgaard's and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra's togetherness, ensemble playing is totally amazing and gives this listener a completely different view of these Brahmsian masterpieces. Add Anna Larsson – Abbado's favourite alto – Johan Reuter, and the Swedish Radio Choir, and what you get is a very, very strong team indeed. Renowned for his creativity and innovation in programming, the excitement of his live performances and an extensive catalogue of critically-acclaimed recordings, Thomas Dausgaard has been the chief conductor of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra since 1997, and in 2016 took up the same position with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. He is also set to become the music director of the Seattle Symphony in 2019.
Brahms: Piano Sonata No. 1 - Schubert: Fantasy in C / Kantorow
BIS
SACD
$15.99$21.99Save 25%Nov 01, 2024
Although by no means Brahms’s very first composition, the Sonata in C bears the number ‘Op. 1’ and is undoubtedly one of the most brilliant débuts in musical history. No wonder no less than Robert Schumann saw Brahms as the savior of German music. To accompany what is in every respect a dazzling work, another masterpiece was needed, and what better than Franz Schubert’s famous ‘Wanderer Fantasy,’ the most virtuosic composition in his entire output. With it, Schubert opened up new expressive possibilities with his ‘orchestral’ writing, leaving Beethoven in the shade and seeming to anticipate Franz Liszt. The latter composer-pianist, with his transcendental virtuosity, also had to be present on this disc, and we find him with his masterly transcriptions for piano of five Schubert lieder.
In 2019, when Alexandre Kantorow, at the age of 22, became the first French pianist to win the Gold Medal at the Tchaikovsky competition, his program included no fewer than three works by Johannes Brahms. So it was with great anticipation that we were looking forward to his recording of the German composer’s works. With this release, Kantorow concludes his cycle dedicated to Brahms’s piano sonatas, the previous installments of which garnered the highest praise from the music press around the world, as well as the most prestigious awards, such as Gramophone’s Editor’s Choice, Diapason d’Or, and Choc from Classica.
REVIEWS:
Kantorow’s playing can be torrential but it’s never reckless; his sound can be full but his playing is often laced with delicacy; and because of his uncanny ability to balance inner lines, he manages to untangle Brahms’s thickest passages.
— Gramophone, Editor's Choice - November 2024
It is nice to hear how Kantorow can channel Schubert’s lighthearted humor just as successfully as he can evoke deeper emotions. In all of his previous recordings, he has proven more than able to integrate musicality and artistry with fine technique and virtuosity. This album continues the trend, and wonderfully so.
Johannes Brahms's Clarinet Quintet is core repertoire, not just for clarinettists but also in the entire chamber music genre. As such, it has been on Martin Fröst's 'to-be-recorded list' for a long time, and when he gathered a dream-team of string players for a concert in Stockholm in February 2013, it was the perfect opportunity for BIS to organize a recording session. Brahms's Quintet was written in 1891 by a composer who only a year previously had renounced composing, but whose creative urge had been reawakened by his encounter with the leading clarinettist of the time, Richard Mühlfeld. Some 120 years later, Fröst - one of today's most highly regarded musicians and the recipient of the 2014 Sonning Prize - steps into Mühlfeld's shoes, in the company of Janine Jansen, Boris Brovtsyn, Maxim Rysanov and Torleif Thedéen. As a complement to this substantial work - with a duration of almost 35 minutes - Martin Fröst has transcribed six much-loved songs by Brahms, performing them with his chamber music partner of long standing, the eminent pianist Roland Pöntinen. The songs, composed between 1866-1886, range from high lyricism (Die Mainacht) to bitter-sweet nostalgia (Wie Melodien...), via the humourous Vergebliches Ständchen. To these new recordings has been added a substantial 'bonus' - Martin Fröst's performance with Pöntinen and Thedéen of the Trio for clarinet, cello and piano, which Brahms composed for Mühlfeld in the same year as the quintet. Originally released in 2005, the recording of the Trio received a warm welcome, including an Editor's Choice in Gramophone, as well as a 'Disc of the Month' on website ClassicsToday.com.
One of Johannes Brahms's sunniest works, the Violin Concerto in D major was conceived during the summer of 1878, which Brahms spent by the idyllic Wörthersee in Kärnte, Austria. By the end of the summer he was able to send the violin part of the first movement, and the beginning of the Finale to his friend Joseph Joachim. Brahms asked Joachim for advice regarding the writing for violin, and also told him that he was planning a work in four movements. By the time Joachim gave the first performance of the work, on New Year's Day 1879, the two had discussed the work in depth, Brahms had replaced the two projected inner movements with the glowing Adagio, and Joachim had composed a first version of his own cadenza, which still is the one most often performed. Vadim Gluzman, who on BIS has previously released Romantic war-horses such as the concertos by Tchaikovsky and Bruch to critical acclaim, now takes on Brahms with the support of the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester under James Gaffigan. He combines it with the composer's Violin Sonata No. 1, written more or less in tandem with the concerto, performing it with his wife and recital partner Angela Yoffe.
Brahms: Symphony No. 2, Haydn Variations & Academic Festival Overture / Dausgaard, Swedish Chamber Orchestra
BIS
SACD
$21.99Jan 05, 2018
On a number of previous recordings, the 40-odd members of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Thomas Dausgaard have shed a new light on the Romantic symphonic repertoire, with performances described as ‘tight’, ‘invigorating’, ‘transparent’ and ‘thrilling’. Complete cycles of the symphonies of Schumann and Schubert have appeared alongside individual discs with music by Dvorák, Bruckner and Tchaikovsky, as well as a recording of Johannes Brahms’s First Symphony, released in 2012. The disc was named Recommendation of the Month in the German magazine Fono Forum, while the reviewer in International Record Review described it as ‘an account to make one hope a complete traversal is in the offing’. Five years later that hope is nearing fulfilment, as the team’s recording of Symphony No. 2 is released. Composed during the summer of 1877, which Brahms spent at the idyllic Wörthersee, it is one of his sunniest works, often compared to Beethoven’s Pastoral symphony. It’s followed by the Haydn Variations, in which Brahms was able to combine one of his favourite musical forms – that of theme and variations – with his deep admiration for Joseph Haydn. (Fortunately, the discovery that the theme in question, known as the ‘St Antoni Chorale’, wasn’t by Haydn after all was made long after Brahms’s death.) The programme continues with other favourites in Brahms’s production, including his greatest commercial success in the form of three of the hugely popular set of Hungarian Dances for piano, here in orchestrations by Thomas Dausgaard. The album ends in similarly high spirits, with the Academic Festival Overture and its rousing and jubilant C major coda.
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 & Six Piano Pieces, Op. 118
PENTATONE
CD
$19.99Sep 11, 2026
Following the 2025 release of Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2 and Intermezzi Op. 117 - an album that received rave reviews worldwide - Francesco Piemontesi, conductor Manfred Honeck, and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig continue their Brahms journey with a compelling new recording of the composer's Piano Concerto No. 1. A work of striking emotional force and symphonic grandeur, it was born from a profound personal and artistic crisis. Composed in the aftermath of Robert Schumann's tragic collapse, the concerto reflects Brahms' struggle for artistic identity, as well as his confrontation with grief, responsibility, and expectation. From it's monumental opening - once likened to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony - to the deeply introspective slow movement, often understood as a portrait of Clara Schumann, this interpretation reveals the work's extraordinary psychological depth. Complementing the concerto are Brahms' Six Piano Pieces, Op. 118, works of introspection, farewell, and concentrated expression. Composed more than three decades after the concerto, these miniatures distil a lifetime of experience into music of remarkable intimacy and emotional restraint. From the consoling warmth of the Intermezzo in A Major to the desolate introspection of the Intermezzo in E-flat minor - often regarded among Brahms' darkest utterances - these pieces form a poignant counterpoint to the youthful turbulence of the concerto. Together, they trace a path from struggle to reflection, offering a profound insight into Brahms' artistic evolution and inner world. Francesco Piemontesi, one of today's most-cherished pianists, presents the sixth release in his exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE, following the widely praised Schubert - Last Piano Sonatas (2019), Bach Nostalghia (2021), Schoenberg, Messiaen & Ravel (2022), Liszt Transcendental Etudes & Piano Sonata (2023), and Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 & Three Intermezzi Op. 117 (2025).
Recipient of the prestigious Brahms Prize of the Schleswig-Holstein Brahms Society in 2024, Kent Nagano and the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra, of which he was principal conductor from 2015 until 2025, perform the first two symphonies by the Hamburg-born composer, recorded in concert. Completed in 1876 after more than twenty years of hesitation, Brahms's First Symphony in C minor, Op. 68, bears the full weight of it's long gestation. Rooted in late Beethoven - Hans von Bulow famously called it the 'Tenth' - it traces a compelling per aspera ad astra journey: from the chromatic, drum-led opening's Faustian struggle, through a luminous slow movement and buoyant third, to a finale that breaks triumphantly into radiant C major. Critically admired but not widely loved, it remained music for connoisseurs. Composed swiftly during the summer of 1877 at the Worthersee, Brahms's Second Symphony in D major, Op. 73, stands in luminous contrast to it's brooding predecessor. Freed from the pressure of a symphonic debut, Brahms produced a work of natural ease and lyrical abundance: from the horn-launched opening movement to the enchanting third-movement minuet and the exuberant finale, it extends it's warmth - in Hanslick's words - to 'connoisseurs and laymen alike.'
Anna Fedorova presents the late keyboard works of Brahms. 'These works feel as if he is speaking to us in a more private voice than ever before. The music is deeply personal, full of tenderness, nostalgia, love, and quiet reflection' says Fedorova. 'His lifelong bond with Clara Schumann remained a central part of his inner world. She was among the first to see these manuscripts, and her presence seems to quietly accompany them.' Op. 117 are three sets of melodies without words. Of Op. 118, Clara wrote: 'It is simply marvellous how your inner self seems to bubble, shine and whisper, constantly imbued with the grandeur and depth of your ideas!' With Op. 119, the keyboard seems once again to contain an entire orchestra, just like the early works that the young Brahms had presented to Robert Schumann forty years earlier.
Having different backgrounds is an asset. Growing up in a multilingual environment fosters cognitive flexibility I was fortunate enough to live between Romania and Germany,' says Konstantin Krimmel. Together with his longtime musical partner Ammiel Bushakevitz, who also has 'mixed roots', he sought to bring together the composers Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) and Eusebius Mandyczewski (1857-1929), who met in Vienna in the late 1870s and maintained a close friendship: on the one hand, the established composer from faraway Hamburg, author of nearly 200 Lieder and vocal works; on the other, the young student from distant Bukovina, son of an Orthodox priest, who grew up immersed in the Romanian of his mother's side and the Ukrainian of his father's, a pupil of a Mendelssohn's disciple. His eighteen Romanian Songs were published in 1885 in a bilingual Romanian-German edition, based on texts by Vasile Alecsandri (1821-1890), 'a magnificent poet who wrote in a highly evocative style and in close connection with nature. A nature that I love and from which I draw inspiration as a source of interpretation for every recital,' says Krimmel. They are recorded here for the first time in their original language, Romanian. The two composers share a love of Schubert-Mandyczewski was the first publisher of his complete works-a fascination with folk songs, and a taste for melancholy, which is felt throughout this program.
Having made numerous recordings for BIS both as a clarinettist and as a conductor, Michael Collins had yet to offer us one of the masterpieces of the clarinet chamber repertoire: Johannes Brahms' Clarinet Quintet. Here he performs alongside the Escher Quartet, whose latest recording devoted to Janacek's quartets (BIS-2670) has earned critical acclaim. While the combination of clarinet and string quartet offers rich potential, Mozart's glorious clarinet quintet cast a long shadow that few composers dared to enter. Composed at the twilight of his career, Brahms's quintet is an elegiac masterpiece. It radiates aching nostalgia and a poignant sense of lost love, ultimately settling into a melancholy serenity. It's emotional directness is occasionally surprising yet never sacrifices subtlety. Max Reger modelled his own Clarinet Quintet on those by Mozart and Brahms. In this final composition before his untimely death, Reger pushes tonal limits without compromising structure. Seamlessly integrating the clarinet, he creates a beautifully balanced ensemble capable of both powerful outbursts and delicate textures. Straddling the dawn of the 20th century, Reger's remarkably rich work pays profound homage to the past.
The Landscape of Clara Schumann unfolds like a finely drawn musical panorama: a recording that combines historical resonances, personal perspectives, and contemporary sound to create a multi-layered overall picture. Pianist Heike-Angela Moser - a descendant of Clara Schumann- dedicates herself here in a special way to the legacy of her ancestor; not in the form of a nostalgic retrospective, but as a lively, artistic exploration of origins and the future. A central element of this recording is the 1859 Schiedmayer fortepiano, whose historical character and fine timbre allow the repertoire to shine with a rarely heard authenticity. The Landscape of Clara Schumann is a poetic journey of sound: a dialogue between generations, between memory and renewal, between the historical breath of an instrument and the living voice of it's contemporary interpreter.
Deutsche Volkslieder fur Sopran, Bariton und Gitarre
Prospero Classical
CD
$20.99Aug 21, 2026
Brahms' folk-song settings rank among the most poetic miniatures of his oeuvre. Poised between artful simplicity and Romantic inwardness, they preserve the inflection and narrative candour of oral tradition while elevating it into the realm of Kunstlied. By replacing the piano with guitar, this recording moves the songs closer to their vernacular roots: the texture becomes transparent, the timbre warmer, the expressive gesture more immediate. Sopranist Theresa Pilsl and baritone Jonas Muller approach these songs with idiomatic diction, stylistic acuity and compelling narrative presence - tender and lyrical, playfully dialogic and disarmingly direct. Leonard Becker shapes the guitar part with a refined ear for color and resonance. His playing unites rhythmic precision with cantabile phrasing, creating a breathing acoustic space in which the voices unfold naturally.
One of the most famous English contraltos of the twentieth century sadly passed away at a young age. However, she left behind several memorable recordings, including those made with some of the greatest conductors of the period. These recordings are meticulously restored from the original sources.
Gianandrea Noseda is clearly one of those conductors who 'are equally at home in both genres', as the 'Neue Zurcher Zeitung' put it in 2021 on the occasion of his debut as General Music Director at Zurich Opera House. 'In hindsight, one cannot even judge whether he is the better opera or symphony conductor.' In his concert performances in Zurich, Noseda focused on the works of Johannes Brahms. Following a highly acclaimed performance of the 'German Requiem', he also conducted the Zurich Opera Orchestra in performances of Brahms's symphonies. The four symphonies by Johannes Brahms were completed between 1876 and 1885 and are regarded as milestones in the Romantic orchestral repertoire. Under the baton of Gianandrea Noseda, they were recorded live at the Zurich Opera House during various concerts and can now be heard together on this album.
On this exciting release from Hyperion, Stephen Hough performs a collection of exquisite Brahmsian miniatures. The pianist refers to these works as brief meditations on last things before 'the light fades and the final cigar is extinguished.'
This 2-CD release tells the story of Pollinis triumphant reunion with Staatskapelle Dresden in 2011 and 2013 and includes the acclaimed recordings of Brahmss Piano Concertos with Christian Thielemann. Those who admire the intelligent, direct and stylishly lean virtuosity that Maurizio Pollini has long brought to Brahmss Piano Concertos will want to know how the pianists recent recordings with Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden compare with his two earlier versions, both conducted by the late Claudio Abbado.
