Brahms: Piano Music
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- Quartz Music
- January 1, 2011
BRAHMS Two Rhapsodies, Op. 79. 7 Fantasien, Op. 116. 4 Klavierstücke, Op. 119 • Alexander Kobrin (pn) • QUARTZ 2077 (54: 39) Live: Lied Center, Kansas City and Glinka Museum, Moscow
Alexander Kobrin is the Van Cliburn prizewinner whose recording of Haydn sonatas I praise below. Here he is playing Brahms live in concerts recorded in Kansas City and Moscow. Born in 1980, he must be a confident man. He’s certainly a gifted, disciplined pianist. Perhaps inevitably, when I think of Brahms’s op. 119, I think of the Van Cliburn recording My Favorite Brahms. On the reissue Cliburn plays the two rhapsodies found here and two of the short pieces of op. 116. He ends the four pieces of the loosely connected op.119 magisterially: I don’t know another version that has Cliburn’s stirring martial quality, and yet is also true to its more romantic ruminations. Kobrin’s version is less grand, and to my mind, marginally less exciting. Of course, Brahms presents unusual problems to any interpreter: His formidable intellect is always visible behind even his most impassioned moments, as in the two rhapsodies recorded here. I find Kobrin most convincing in the gentler passages of these pieces. His tone is always beautiful, and he is free of mannerisms and irrelevant romantic gestures. His audience is wildly appreciative. If in most of the works I prefer the grander Cliburn, I won’t discount the appeal of Kobrin’s nuanced playing. There’s of course a lot of competition in late Brahms piano music, including the recordings of Perahia, Katchen, and on certain pieces, Rubinstein.
FANFARE: Michael Ullman
Product Description:
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Release Date: January 01, 2011
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UPC: 880040207726
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Catalog Number: QTZ2077
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Label: Quartz Music
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Number of Discs: 1
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Composer: Johannes, Brahms
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Performer: Alexander Kobrin