Johannes Brahms
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Brahms: Piano Concerto No 2 / Gerhard Oppitz, Colin Davis
--Victor Carr Jr., ClassicsToday.com
reviewing this the 2nd Concerto, reissued as part of RCA 60388
Brahms: Piano Concerto No 1 / Gerhard Oppitz, Colin Davis
Brahms: Sextette, Op. 18 & Op. 36
Zino Francescatti Plays Brahms
BRAHMS Violin Concerto. Serenade No. 2 in A • Ernest Bour, cond; Zino Francescatti (vn); SWR SO Baden-Baden and Freiburg • HÄNSSLER 94.219 (72:07)
Readers should be aware that when multiple reviews of the same release appear back-to-back in the magazine, copies of those recordings are sent to the contributing reviewers blind. This means we don’t know when or if a colleague might be submitting an opposing opinion and, if so, who that colleague might be. In this case, however, I think I can make a pretty good guess that this release also went out to Robert Maxham and, based on our usually differing views about violinists and violin playing, plus what he’s said about Zino Francescatti in past reviews, I can almost guarantee the reader two quite different takes on this performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto.
First, let me say that of Francescatti’s recordings I’ve heard—admittedly not that many—there’s only one I really liked and would have recommended, had I been reviewing for Fanfare back then. That was his 1959 recording of the Brahms “Double” Concerto with cellist Pierre Fournier and Bruno Walter leading the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. Among my disliked Francescatti recordings was his Paganini First Concerto with Mitropoulos and the New York Philharmonic, coupled with a Saint-Saëns Third Concerto with Ormandy leading the Philadelphia Orchestra.
It’s hard to say exactly what turned me off Francescatti’s playing early on. It was at a time in the late 1950s, shortly after I first started learning the violin and listening to recordings that my ideas of what constituted ideal violin playing were being formed. Francescatti was touted as a virtuoso extraordinaire, a technician of such redoubtable accomplishment that he was compared favorably to Heifetz. Yet what I heard when I listened to Francescatti was a rich, silken tone that often turned hard and abrasive in technically challenging passages. More disturbing, though I couldn’t have verbalized it at the time, was what I now regard as a laissez-faire approach to rapid passagework—a sort of “close enough for government work” attitude, in which harmonics were missed, runs were uneven, and notes were often sloughed off. To my ear, Francescatti lacked the self-discipline of Heifetz and Milstein and the discretion of Oistrakh in knowing when to resist risk-taking that exceeded one’s limits.
Second, all of this may be of little relevance because—though Francescatti’s discography is probably more extensive than current listings would suggest—Columbia Records, the label for which Francescatti mainly recorded, decided that Isaac Stern was the more saleable violinist, thus curtailing Francescatti’s exposure on record, at least to American audiences.
Counting this current Hänssler release, to the best of my knowledge, there are five Francescatti versions of the Brahms concerto on record, all of them commercially available on CD. Compared to Oistrakh’s 15 recordings, documented in a 28:4 review, five seems like a modest number, but as suggested above, Francescatti may have been captured live in more performances of the work than are in general circulation; I don’t know. Of the five, however, this studio recording made in 1974 is the latest. The other four versions are Ormandy/Philadelphia, 1956 (mono); Mitropolous/Vienna Philharmonic, 1958 (mono); Bernstein/New York Philharmonic, 1961; and Leinsdorf/ORTF National Orchestra, 1969.
Francescatti was 72 when he joined Ernest Bour and SWR Symphony Orchestra of Baden-Baden and Freiburg for this venture. It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that his previously full-bodied tone has thinned a bit, and there seems to be a very slight but detectable right-hand tremor on sustained notes; listen carefully, for example, to the high A at bar 140. Also, some of the minor technical issues noted in his earlier recordings have now become real liabilities. The passage in chords beginning in bar 164, for instance, is choppily articulated and sounds a bit desperate in its grasping for the notes. Nonetheless, the violinist has lost none of his fearlessness in the face of danger. For a 28:4 review of Arabella Steinbacher’s Brahms, I plugged 24 versions of the concerto into a spreadsheet and then sorted them by timings. If I were to add this Francescatti performance to the mix, it wouldn’t be the fastest—at 36:03, that distinction still goes to Milstein with Fistoulari and the Philharmonia in a 1961 recording for EMI—but at 38:15, it ties Grumiaux’s 1958 recording with van Beinum and the Concertgebouw for seventh place on the list, still 15 seconds faster than Heifetz’s classic 1955 Reiner/Chicago account.
I hope I haven’t made this Francescatti Brahms sound worse than it is. If you’re willing to overlook a slip here, a mishap there, and a rough patch every now and then—all technical flaws which I believe were always present in Francescatti’s playing on earlier recordings—there are some nice things to be said of the performance as well. Conductor Bour and Francescatti share a rapturous vision of the score, bringing to it many moments of an almost ecstatic magnanimity. The lofty, angelic purity of Francescatti’s tone in the first movement’s post-cadenza measures (he plays the familiar Joachim cadenza, by the way) is absolutely transfixing.
So, even though I’ve expressed personal reservations about Francescatti’s playing in general, I acknowledge that he’s justly recognized as one of the 20th century’s great violinists, and I recommend this CD not just to Francescatti fans. Those who cherish Brahms’s Violin Concerto will also want this memento of what is probably the violinist’s last recorded performance of the work.
Brahms’s rustic, amiable A-Major Serenade is a generous addition to this already desirable disc, and considering it’s almost as long as the concerto, it would be ungenerous to call it filler. Ernest Bour is not a conductor I’ve had occasion to review before, but based on his contribution in the concerto and his reading of the serenade, I’d have to say that he has a real flair for Brahms. Unfortunately, Bour died in 2001, so we’re not likely to hear any more from him. But this is a glowing performance by a conductor and an orchestra on top form.
Sonically, both the concerto and the serenade are quite good, but the serenade, recorded four years later in 1978, is marginally better. It’s more open and has more air around it, which lends the serenade an appropriate outdoorsy atmosphere. Strongly recommended.
FANFARE: Jerry Dubins
Brahms: Symphony No 2, Tragic Overture / Munch, Boston So
Toscanini Collection Vol 6 - Brahms: Symphony No 1
Brahms, J.: Trio in A Minor, Op. 114 / Clarinet Sonata No. 1
Artur Rubinstein - Brahms: Cello Sonatas, Etc / Piatigorsky
-- Gramophone [7/1977, comparing the Brahms Cello Sonatas as played by Piatigorsky and Rubinstein with the recording by Du Pré and Barenboim]
Brahms: Complete Sonatas For Violin & Piano / Casadesus, Francescatti
Recorded live at the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress, January 3, 1947 and January 4, 1952.
DOPPELKONZERT OP. 102/CELLOKON
Brahms: Choral Works / Davis, Stutzmann, Bavarian Radio
Sir Colin Davis's way with him strengthens such reactions. In the Schicksalslied his is the most serene account of Elysium and of the compatibility of Elysian security and earthly turbulence. Conductors as different from each other as Blomstedt (Decca) and Sinopoli (DG) are alike in their apparent conviction that what has to be done with this piece is to split it asunder, expose the chasm between its two worlds. Blomstedt's approach is probably philosophical, Sinopoli's dramatic, but they both go for the black and the white of it: Blomstedt takes 'Elysium' slowly and 'Earth' brutally fast and loud. Sinopoli moves in more doubtful fashion in the empyrean but then with demonic drive in the depiction of harried humanity. Davis forces nothing: he encourages neither lethargy nor wildness. Musically, his performance makes perfectly good sense of the return to calm, and all the argument about whether it constitutes an intentionally acquiescent 'happy ending' seems rather wide of the mark: musically the piece is a unity, and Davis's reading, like Brahms's composition, is thoroughly 'concerted'.
The soloist for the Alto Rhapsody is Nathalie Stutzmann, not entirely steady in her opening phrases but then deep-toned, and unusual in lightening the upper note in "der Falk der Liebe". [These performances] are gentle, both as recordings and interpretations. A bonus is the inclusion of the attractive and rarely heard Marienlieder of 1859: seven carol-like a cappella pieces, showing, among other things, the fine blend and sensitive shading of the Bavarian choir.
-- Gramophone [5/1993]
Brahms: String Quartets, Op. 51 Nos. 1 & 2 / New Orford String Quartet
– Gramophone
Brahms: Choral Works Vol 3 / Albrecht, Et Al
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.
Farewell To Salzburg / Christa Ludwig
Christa Ludwig was one of the leading operatic and recital singers of the post war generation... The disc devoted to lieder makes for very rewarding listening. The groups by Strauss and Mahler strike me as being particularly fine. Even towards the end of her long career Ludwig was able to call upon the resources of tone which these songs so often demand. This is not to imply that the offerings of Schumann or Brahms are in any way inferior. In these, too, she is in lustrous voice and sings with an innate understanding of the idiom. The programme is artfully chosen not only to present composers with whose music Ludwig had a particular affinity but also, just as importantly, with regard to the inevitable limitations the years may have placed upon her vocal resources. Suffice to say there is little or nor hint that we are listening to a singer aged 65. ...[T]he whole lieder recital is taken from a disc entitled ‘Farewell to Salzburg’ and comprises the programme which she chose for her final recital in that city in August 1993. The recordings themselves were made in the previous January during performances in the Schloss Grafenegg in Haitzendorf, Austria... The discs will give much pleasure for they are full of high quality artistry and all admirers of this great singer will want to snap up these recordings.
-- John Quinn, MusicWeb International [reviewing the box set RCA 84597]
Dvorák: Quintet, Op 81; Brahms: Sextet, Op 36 / Heifetz
If it's the Quintet you want, then this RCA version is without question the one to have . . . . RCA offers Brahms's glorious Second Sextet in a performance that is as beautiful in detail as it is grandly conceived as a whole. Intonation may not be perfect but the fine sweep of it all is irresistible. Heifetz's three Hungarian Dances are a delightful makeweight. -- Gramophone
Brahms: Liebeslieder - Walzer
Clarinet Universe: Lubeck Philharmonic Live 5
Brahms: Piano Concerto No 1 / Berman, Leinsdorf, Chicago Symphony
Brahms: Violin Concerto, Double Concerto / Spivakov, Kniazev, Termikanov
Brahms: Piano Concerto No 1; Strauss: Burleske / Szell, Serkin
Serkin is said to have disliked recording and his legacy is mixed, technically and artistically. Yet, at best, his driving energy, his fierce intelligence, his quick mind, and (until comparatively recently) his unfailing lucidity of touch often produced recordings that do that rare thing: they transcend the medium.
One such recording is his 1968 Cleveland account of Brahms's D minor Piano Concerto which Sony have recently reissued...coupled with another Serkin speciality, Richard Strauss's Burleske for piano and orchestra. Serkin "at the peak of his form, emotionally, intellectually, and technically" is how Trevor Harvey described the performance in these columns in May 1969 and I wouldn't disagree with that. From the piano's first entry it is evident that we are in the presence of a musical plain-dealer who is something more besides. The touch is plain but never monochrome, resolute but never harsh. There are miracles of dynamic shading yet dynamic changes that are elementally swift and steep. Above all, there is a revelatory way with rhythm, full of potency and drive in quicker music, and turning the more reflective passages into slow sustained acts of transcendental enquiry. As a reading this has something of Arrau's weight and profundity (Philips D 420 702-2PSL, 11/87) matched to Curzon's lyricism and sense of forward drive (Decca D 417 641-2DH, 10/87, also conducted by Szell). It is not better than either but it has some of the best qualities of both. There are those, it must be said, who are distracted by Serkin's stamping pedalwork and by breathing that has Serkin, like Arrau, cross-hatching the lie of a phrase with his own peculiar form of musical emphysema. Such things don't worry me unduly. You can't expect a man to go up the north face of the Eiger, silently, in carpet-slippers; and, in the slow movement, I find the counterpointing of Serkin's stressful breathing, with the sublimely conjured and spun melody that floats from it, to be a moving re-enactment of the composer's own recalcitrance in the face of the brute marble out of which this concerto is sculpted.
Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra are, needless to say, superb accompanists, and the sound is excellent in an appropriately forthright way, with pianissimos that are not so much pianissimo as properly hushed and innig. I don't agree with the reviewer who found Serkin's account of the Strauss Burleske to be lacking in poetry. Rather, it glints; it is sharp and witty. Above all, the performance redeems the work from its principal failing: the sense it can give of being marginally but fatally over length... [I]f you want a truly worthy memorial of this great pianist from the current batch, there is absolutely no doubt that the Brahms/Strauss disc is the one to have.
-- Gramophone [7/1991]
Rare Recordings of Ferenc Friksay (Remastered)
Brahms, J.: Symphonies Nos. 1-4 / Tragic Overture / Academic
Brahms: Violin Concerto, Symphony No 2 / Fricsay, De Vito
Her performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto in the early 1950s, under Ferenc Fricsay, was pervaded by a delicate lyricism and a romantic sorcery rarely encountered elsewhere. Joachim Hartnack about Gioconda De Vito Gioconda De Vito, one of the great violinists of her time, was considered a Brahms specialist. The only evidence to date of her work with Ferenc Fricsay and the RIAS Orchestra is the above mentioned quote. Precisely this collaboration was captured in a superb monaural recording by the RIAS broadcasting company in Berlin - a stroke of luck, for De Vito had an aversion to the recording studio. Gioconda De Vito, Ferenc Fricsay and the RIAS-Symphonie Orchester produce an exemplary realization of the concept of the "symphonic concerto". A great deal of the cogency of this realization is owed to the precise dovetailing of soloist and orchestra, even in those passages in which De Vito grants herself a liberal use of rubato. With wonted translucence, Fricsay allows the solo instrumentalists in his orchestra to share the limelight with the violinist. The recording reveals all of Gioconda De Vito's strengths. She unfolds a large, singing tone, at once brilliantly radiant and warm. This accurate, crisply recorded performance by the RIAS-Symphonie-Orchester under Fricsay also brings out the very deliberate rhythmic organization with which she shaped her cantilenas. Under Fricsay, the RIAS-Symphonie-Orchester also succeeds in turning their recording of Brahms's Second Symphony into a touchstone of Brahmsian "orchestral chamber music." " "Sales Inventory
Isaac Stern - A Life In Music - Brahms: Violin Sonatas
KLAVIER QUARTETT OP. 25, VIOLI
Wilhelm Furtwängler conducts Johannes Brahms Symphony No. 1
EIN DEUTSCHES REQUIEM: STADER,
Brahms: Die Symphonien / Jansons, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
The beauty of Brahmsian symphonic creativity comes to full fruition in these live recordings from the Musikverein in Vienna and the Herkulessaal in Munich under the direction of Mariss Jansons.
BRAHMS - LIEDER
Brahms: Works for Solo Piano, Vol. 4 / Douglas
Vol. 4 in Barry Douglas’s monumental, well-regarded solo piano Brahms project prominently features the composer’s first published work, his C major Sonata, op. 1.The influence on Brahms of his predecessors Beethoven and Schubert is obvious, not only in the virtuoso demands on the performer but also in the opening, which recalls both Beethoven’s ‘Hammerklavier’ Sonata and Schubert’s ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy.Two other impeccable and impressive works, the Schumann Variations, op. 9, and the Paganini Variations, Op. 35 (Book 1) are included, along with several short keyboard character pieces.
