Johannes Brahms
539 products
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Brahms: Piano Works
$17.99CDIBS Classical
Jun 20, 2025IBS-42025 -
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Brahms and Enescu
$20.99CDSignum Classics
Aug 01, 2025SIGCD936 -
Britten, Brahms, Elgar & Sibelius: Violin Concertos
$26.99CDICA Classics
Nov 28, 2025ICAC5185 -
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Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4
$21.99SACDBIS
Jun 20, 2025BIS-2374 -
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Jinhyung Park Piano Recital
$19.99CDNaxos
Apr 10, 20268574672 -
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Brahms: Symphonies 2 & 4
$21.99SACDChandos
Jan 02, 2026CHSA 5248 -
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Brahms: Piano Works
Dvořak: Hussite Overture - Brahms: Violin Concerto / Szeryng, Kubelik, BRSO
The visiting Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra opened its concert at the 1967 Vienna Festival with a high-octane performance of Dvorák’s patriotic overture The Hussites. In the Brahms Violin Concerto, the elegant soloist Henry Szeryng and the conductor Rafael Kubelík entered into a musical dialogue that was both subtly sensitive and quick-witted. This release has been digitally mastered from the original tapes for optimal sound quality, and is sure to delight a whole new generation of listeners.
REVIEWS:
Some recordings need merely seconds to make their mark, especially when taken from memorable concerts. One such occurred on June 11, 1967, when the Bavarian RSO under Rafael Kubelík were joined by Henryk Szeryng at the Vienna Konzerthaus for a performance of Brahms’s Violin Concerto, music-making that exhibited a degree of elasticity and intellectual elevation that is typical of both artists (it’s newly reissued but was originally released by Orfeo in 2017).
Try the first movement’s big central tutti at 8’38”, Kubelík’s natural brand of rubato and the strings’ soaring tone, winding down to Szeryng’s meditative re-entry soon afterwards. And there’s the superb oboe solo at the start of the Adagio, the perfect preparation for Szeryng’s angelic solo. Rarely have I heard a reading that captures the music’s rhapsodic spirit as tellingly as Szeryng and Kubelík do here, tracing the line’s ever-shifting expressive focus with an uncanny musical instinct. And the bustle of the finale, crisp and upbeat, its gypsy inflections unmistakable from the off, its lyrical central section returning us to the songlike aspects of the first two movements.
But it’s the disc’s opening track that in many respects proves a prize among prizes, Dvořák’s Hussite Overture, music originally intended as part of a dramatic trilogy on the Bohemian religious leader Jan Hus. The principal theme is more famous for its use in Smetana’s Má vlast but Dvořák knits it into a 13-minute panoply of dramatic events that Kubelík and his players respond to as if their lives depended on it. There have been fine commercial recordings but none that fans the flames quite as effectively as this one. The stereo recording wears its years lightly. Unmissable!
-- Gramophone
After an excellent Hussite Overture from Kubelik and the orchestra, the conductor shapes Brahm’s tutti well, working up quite a storm and not relaxing too much for the lyrical theme. Szeryng’s entry is imperious; he produces lovely lyrical playing for the quieter passages.
-- The Strad
The stereo sound is quite good, and not just for the time—it is vivid and full, making for an enjoyable listen. I feel a touch of regret at having missed out on Szeryng this long, but in the spirit of better late than never, this is a memorable recording that deserves high praise.
-- Fanfare
Brahms & Reger: Clarinet Quintets
Superb performances by accomplished musicians from the Sächsische Staatskapelle
Love Letters
Brahms: Orchestral & Vocal Works / Diakun, Orquesta Comunidad de Madrid
The Brahms vocal compositions (for their quality and abundance – over 400 of them) made Brahms a “worthy heir to Beethoven” in Germany, throughout Europe, and finally in France, where Ravel was the first and one of the few to admire “the beauty in his melodic ideas, their quality of expression and above all the brilliance of his orchestral language”. Schoenberg also later praised the innovation of his musical language in his Style and Idea. The excellence of Brahms’ work was summed up by Joseph Joachim, the celebrated Hungarian violinist, composer and conductor who worked with Brahms, and who described his music as “pure as a diamond, soft as the snow”. Schumann also praised the serenity and optimism of the tone with which Brahms ended his most sombre and tormented pieces: “Over choppy waves finally a rainbow shimmers, as the nightingale’s song accompanies the capricious flight of the butterfly”. This album compiles some of the most important vocal & orchestral works that best define the German composer.
Brahms, R. Schumann, Gade: Music for Clarinet & Piano: Manz, Schuch
Brahms: Quintets, Op. 34 & 111 / Giltburg, Nikl, Pavel Haas Quartet
In every way, a superior Brahms chamber release.
Their recording of the American Quartet and String Quartet No. 13, Op. 106 (Gramophone Award – Recording of the Year), elevated the Pavel Haas Quartet among the finest performers of Antonín Dvorák’s music. This position was subsequently confirmed by a recording of the composer’s quintets, made with the violist Pavel Nikl, a founding member of the ensemble, and the pianist Boris Giltburg, winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition. The album received the most coveted classical music accolades (Gramophone Chamber Award, BBC Radio 3 Record Review Discs of the Year, Diapason d'Or, etc.). While recording the Dvorák quintets, the logical idea of a Brahms album was born. And now it has come to fruition.
Dvorák was encouraged by and ultimately attained global fame owing to the kind support and friendship of his older colleague Brahms, who in his twenties had been just as generously aided by Clara and Robert Schumann. Brahms' relationship with Clara is probably also behind the Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34. Originally conceived as a string quintet, in the spring of 1864 Brahms transformed it into a sonata for two pianos, yet Clara voiced her doubts about this version’s sound too. The desired contrast and richness of color was ultimately achieved by combining the strings and the piano. Clara Schumann performed the piano part at the private premiere of the quintet, which she referred to as having “symphonic” proportions. This aspect is clearly foregrounded on the present Pavel Haas Quartet recording. Brahms allegedly intended the String Quintet in G major, Op. 111, to be his last piece of music. In this light, it may come across as a reflection of the music he had cherished during his life – from Beethoven, Schubert, the Viennese waltz, his contemporary Wagner, to his beloved Hungarian dance motifs. From Dvorák to Brahms. A spellbinding “symphonic” chamber music sound.
REVIEW:
The group gets big sonorities, propelled but not overwhelmed by the piano in Op. 34 and by the cello that opens the Op. 111 quintet. The group really shines in the turbulent F minor piano quintet, as dark and intense as anything else Brahms ever wrote, and a work that went through several versions before the composer was satisfied with it. One feature of this ensemble is the variety of timbres offered by the individual players, with the rich tone of violist Luosha Fang an ideal foil for the edgier violinists. The players are aided by superb, almost tactile sound from Prague's Domovina Studio. In every way, a superior Brahms chamber release.
-- AllMusicGuide.com (James Manheim)
Brahms, Ligeti & Sierra: Horn Trios - Three Centuries / Colom, Escauriaza, Pascal
It should come as no surprise that an instrument with the horn’s peculiar sound potential and its attractive combination with two such devices as the violin and the piano has seduced classical composers such as Brahms or Ligeti. In this context, it is necessary and tremendously opportune that Escauriaza, Colom and Pascal have asked Sierra for a new work that updates the genre and enhances the virtuosity and expressiveness of the trio from today’s perspective. Thus, this disc proposes a journey from the past to the present through the last three centuries and by means of three works linked by history.
Ligeti refers to Brahms, and Sierra to both: three essential and inseparable links. Miguel Colom is concertmaster violinist in the National Orchestra of Spain. Manuel Escauriaza is hornist in the National Opera Orchestra of Paris. Denis Pascal is a famous international pianist, professor in Conservatory Superior of Paris.
Brahms: The Violin Sonatas / Mayeda
The fact that an accomplished violinist can also play the piano with equal virtuosity and artistic perfection suggests an extraordinary musical talent. Tomoko Mayeda’s recording of Mozart’s late Viennese violin sonatas already revealed that this is true in her case. On this album, the Japanese artist now presents in a unique way the three violin sonatas by Johannes Brahms by first recording the entire piano part and then adding the violin part in a second recording session. Brahms described his violin sonatas as “Sonatas for Piano and Violin” – himself as an extremely virtuoso pianist being aware of the difficulty and prominent position of the piano part. With this release, Tomoko Mayeda once again demonstrates her extraordinary dual talent.
Brahms: Orchestral Works / Dausgaard, Swedish Chamber Orchestra
This boxed set brings together Thomas Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra’s cycle of Brahms’ symphonies, originally released as four separate discs. Each symphony is coupled with carefully selected works to provide a well-rounded idea of the composer’s orchestral output.
Favorites such as the two concert overtures are included – the laughing and the weeping one, to paraphrase Brahms himself – as well as the beloved Haydn Variations (on a theme likely not by Haydn at all…). Another perennial favorite is the Alto Rhapsody, here with Anna Larsson singing the solo part, but there are also less-heard works – Brahms’s orchestrations of his own Liebeslieder-Walzer for instance, and of six songs by Schubert.
Throughout the set, the composer’s Hungarian Dances run like a thread. Brahms's orchestrations of Nos. 1, 3 and 10 have pride of place on disc 1, with the remaining 18, in much praised orchestral versions by Dausgaard, spread over the remaining three discs. In reviews of the individual discs, critics used words such as ‘freshness’, ‘transparency’, and ‘urgency’ to describe the performances, with Fanfare expressing pleasure at hearing ‘Brahms from the edge of one's seat’.
REVIEWS:
Exciting in quite a different way is Thomas Dausgaard’s invigorating cycle of Brahms symphonies (with interesting additions) with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. ‘The real purpose of using a small orchestra’, Dausgaard told Andrew Mellor regarding his recording of Brahms’s Second, ‘is to allow us to appreciate all the music that’s there, so that it comes to life in every corner, rather than becoming a mesh of sound'...Dausguaard [conducts] with a sense of style.
-- Gramophone
If you are sympathetic to the ideas that Brahms’s orchestral works can be played successfully by a smaller ensemble, and that the music does not lose its effectiveness when somewhat faster tempos are used, then there is no reason not to explore what Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra have done here. He is an intelligent conductor who infuses his ideas with personality, and Brahms is in good, un-arthritic hands. The recordings, made between 2011 and 2018 in the Örebro Concert Hall, sound wonderful.
-- Fanfare
Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, & Debussy / James Freeman
Based in the Philadelphia area, James Freeman has a long reputation as a superb pianist and conductor. Here he plays a great program of works by Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, and Debussy.
Liebesleid
Brahms: String Sextets arr. for Piano Trio / Grand Trio Vilnius
Brahms: String Sextets Opp. 18 & 36, Arr. for Piano by Theodor Kirchner
Brahms, Chopin & Mozart: Spatlese
The pianist Andreas Eggertsberger, who studied in Austria and the USA with Karl Heinz Kämmerling and Oleg Maisenberg, among others, deals with the late works of three composers on his new album “Spätlese” (Late Harvest): Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johannes Brahms and Frédéric Chopin. Whether a work is considered a late work has less to do with the composer’s age and more to do with where the breaking points and further developments are in a composer’s oeuvre. Some of the three selected masters were still young when they entered their late phase: Mozart was in his late twenties when he composed his Fantasia K. 475 and Sonata in C minor K. 457, Chopin was thirty-four when he composed his third and final Sonata in B minor, and Brahms was fifty-nine when he composed his Three Intermezzi Op. 117. Many a future is anticipated. Mozart, for example, builds a bridge to Beethoven with his Fantasy and Sonata in C minor. Chopin, on the other hand, takes a look at late Romanticism and beyond with his increasingly bold harmonies, and Brahms foreshadows musical developments that would only become influential in the 20th century.
Brahms: Lieder / A.L. Richter, Bushakevitz
On her third Pentatone album Brahms Lieder, Anna Lucia Richter returns to the German lied, making her recording debut as a mezzo-soprano with a recital of Brahms songs, together with pianist Ammiel Bushakevitz. Brahms is particularly suitable for this recording debut as his songs fit the mezzo-soprano voice like a glove, and the pieces presented here range from love poetry and dark Romanticism to folk songs, including the world-famous Wiegenlied. Richter’s profound engagement and knowledge of the German lied is perceivable in each song she performs, as well as in her insightful liner notes text for the booklet, in which she links the project to the notion of twilight (Dämmerung). Bushakevitz’s poetic playing offers the perfect tone for both the gloomy and the idyllic pieces. Anna Lucia Richter belongs to the most exciting young singers of her generation. Brahms Lieder is the third fruit of her exclusive collaboration with Pentatone, after her Monteverdi portrait Il delirio della passione (2020) and her Schubert album Heimweh (2019). Ammiel Bushakevitz enjoys a flourishing career both as a solo pianist and lied accompanist, and makes his Pentatone debut.
REVIEW:
As a soprano her earlier Schubert album “Heimweh” was one of the most compelling song albums I’ve reviewed and I named it as one of my Critic’s Choice albums of 2020. I confess that I miss her lighter voice, but the change to mezzo allows her to use her middle range, where she is most at home. The choice of Brahms for her debut album as a mezzo confirms her decision.
I can name no album of Brahms songs I’ve enjoyed more than this. That is due partly to the selection of 20 of his best and most performed songs, including some of his folk song settings. Mostly it is because of Richter’s exemplary ability as a lieder singer. Pentatone’s sound quality is superlative.
-- American Record Guide (Robert A. Moore)
Brahms: Duets & Romances / Erb, Erb, Dietrich, Tchakarova
Brahms & the Schumanns: New Paths / Mari Kodama
Mari Kodama presents New Paths, exploring the young Johannes Brahms and his fascinating friendship with Clara and Robert Schumann. The album derives its title from Robert Schumann’s famous essay “Neue Bahnen”, in which he heralded the young Brahms as the most eminent musical voice of the future. The program brings together Brahms’s first piano sonata, his Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, Op. 9, as well as his Theme And Variations, Op. 18B, made at Clara Schumann’s request. The final word is given to Clara’s arrangement of Robert’s song Widmung.
New Paths not only explores the unique bond of these three remarkable composers, but also shows the energetic self-confidence of the young Brahms, so different from his later melancholia. Kodama performs these works on a brand new Yamaha piano that almost sounds like a period instrument, coming much closer to Brahms’s sound ideal. Mari Kodama is one of the most extraordinary pianists of our age, and has an impressive Pentatone discography, featuring Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas (2003-2014), piano concertos of Loewe and Chopin (2003), Tchaikovsky Ballet Suites for Piano Duo (2016), De Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain (2017), Martinu’s Concerto for Two Pianos (2018), Kaleidoscope, Beethoven Transcriptions and MON AMI Mon amour (both 2020).
Brahms: The Piano Concertos / Kauten, Wurttembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen
It has long been my wish to record both of Johannes Brahms’s piano concertos for CD. In doing so, I have been able to build upon many experiences that allow me at this point in time to open myself up even more to the essence of these works, which move me to the depths of my being. Both works offer me something incredibly great, something that in my conception of things can hardly be further enlarged. Each of the two concertos fascinates me with its vast wealth of sound, its intensity, above all with its simply infinite emotional range. Highly dramatic developments open out into playful lightness of being. Time and again there are sincerely thoughtful moments, marked by deep serenity. The slow movements of these two concertos particularly fascinate me on account of those passages, which give us a glimpse into what is above and beyond the world we know. The Magyar in me senses many Hungarian influences. My engagement with the two concertos in the course of making the present recordings together with the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen has enabled me to look at the above aspects with new eyes. These are insights that go ever deeper throughout one’s whole life. The process is never complete. The cathedral is too big for that. Andrea Kauten
Brahms and Enescu
Britten, Brahms, Elgar & Sibelius: Violin Concertos
Brahms: Early & Late Piano Works
Brahms: Cello Sonatas Nos. 1 & 2 - Schumann: 5 Pieces / Poltera, Brautigam
Six years after their acclaimed disc devoted to Mendelssohn’s works for cello and piano, Christian Poltera and Ronald Brautigam now tackle the two cello sonatas by Johannes Brahms, two central works in the repertoire, unquestionably the most important since those by Beethoven.
The First Cello Sonata was composed between 1862 and 1865 when Brahms was in his thirties. He seemed intent on showcasing the lyricism of an instrument that is often compared to the human voice. Composed 24 years later, the Second Cello Sonata makes greater use of the cello’s range, particularly in the upper register. A common feature of these two sonatas is that the role of the piano is never secondary (Brahms was an excellent pianist) and the dialogue between the two instruments is both inexhaustible and complex.
The programme also includes the Funf Stucke im Volkston (Five Pieces in Folk Style) by Robert Schumann, Brahms’s early mentor. Composed in Schumann’s late years, this short cycle reflects the composer’s taste for small, expressive pieces in, as the title suggests, a popular and accessible idiom. These miniatures draw their charm not only from the cello’s marvellous nuances but also from the ‘folk style’.
Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4
Brahms & C. Schumann: The Muse / Nino Gvetadze
We are proud to present the fifth disc by Nino Gvetadze on Challenge Classics. After Chopin, Scott, Schumann and Beethoven, we get to Brahms. Nino has selected three masterpieces from three different periods of Brahms's life. Schumann's disc (CC 72855): BBC Music Magazine:"This is, quite simply, gorgeous." Gramophone:"Gvetadze's sensitivity to Schumann's vaunted 'inner voices' is unsurpassed"
The year 1860 represented a turning-point in Brahms's life: he issued a 'Manifesto' in which he distanced himself from the Romanticism of the 'New German School' epitomised by Liszt and their association with Wagner's music-dramas. This aesthetic change of heart placed an emphasis on hard work and craftsmanship rather than the more Romantic conception of inspiration, with Brahms taking a particular pride in being both German and a self-made man. This ethos is reflected in the Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24. Brahms's two Rhapsodies, Op. 79 were composed in 1879 and were dedicated to his friend Elisabet von Herzogenberg. The title may lull the listener into a false sense of whimsy, when in reality these pieces are founded on clear structural designs. Three Intermezzos Op. 117: Brahms wrote of these three Intermezzos to his friend Rudolf von der Leyen, describing them as 'Wiegenlieder meiner Schmerzen': 'lullabies of my sorrow'. Each has the character of a soliloquy or introspective personal reflection.
Nino Gvetadze about this album:"Throughout his life, Brahms was influenced by those he admired: the musicians he idolized, and the women with whom he formed powerful bonds. Clara Schumann represented both, and Nino Gvetadze explores their fascinating dynamic in The Muse. Brahms's Two Rhapsodies Op. 79 were dedicated to Elisabet von Herzogenberg, whose loss he mourned in the Intermezzos Op. 117; and he was inspired by Handel to write a phenomenal set of Variations dedicated to Clara Schumann – whose Op. 21 Romances date from a time that neither she nor Brahms would ever forget."
Brahms: Ein deutsches Requiem
Jinhyung Park Piano Recital
Brahms: The Piano Trios / Geringas, Zilberstein, Irnberger
Brahms: Symphonies 2 & 4
Brahms: Sonatas Op. 120 & Four Serious Songs / Kniazev, Uinskas
Ravel, Brahms & Shostakovich: Arc II
This album strives to understand the varying ways composers comprehend grief, loss and death. How did they cope, their hearts broken, their peace gone? And how can we cope? In this combination of works Weiss has tried to follow the paths these great composers walked in their own grief. Their tracks lead us from death back towards life, from horror to hope. Of his Arc album series, Orion Weiss explains: ‘The arc of this recital trilogy is inverted, like a rainbow’s reflection in water. Arc I’s first steps here head downhill, beginning from hope and proceeding down to despair. The bottom of the journey, Arc II, is Earth’s center, grief, loss, the lowest we can reach. The return trip, Arc III, is one of excitement and renewal, filled with the joy of rebirth and the anticipation of a better future.’
