Fuchs, Brahms: Clarinet Quintets

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R. FUCHS Clarinet Quintet. BRAHMS Clarinet Quintet • Sebastian Manz (cl); Danish Str Qrt • AVI 8553300 (71:56)


This CD combines the immortal clarinet quintet of Johannes Brahms with the unmistakably Brahmsian—but of course lesser—quintet of Robert Fuchs. Fuchs’s Quintet is very Viennese, charming, and expertly crafted, and deserves a hearing now and again. I wrote in some detail about this work in reviewing Stephan Siegenthaler’s recording in Fanfare 35:5.


Sebastian Manz, still in his 20s, is principal clarinetist of the SWR Orchestra Stuttgart and a former student of Sabine Meyer. He has a lovely, dark tone and terrific control; he may seem too young to play Brahms’s quintessentially autumnal masterpiece, but other than overdoing things a bit in the second movement’s climactic mm. 85–86 he is exemplary here. The Danish String Quartet, whose members appear to be about the same age as Manz, provides solid support; the many passages in octaves for violin and clarinet are spot-on. There is some lovely give-and-take in the third-movement Andantino and in the theme-and-variations finale.


Fuchs’s Quintet receives a sympathetic reading, more polished than that by Siegenthaler. The recording is attractive and well balanced, with just the right amount of ambience. There are many superb versions of the Brahms Quintet available—by Karl Leister, Harold Wright, and David Shifrin, or more recently by Sharon Kam and Jon Manasse—but not so the Fuchs. Accordingly, highly recommended.


FANFARE: Richard A. Kaplan


Product Description:

  • Release Date: March 27, 2014


  • Catalog Number: AVI 8553300


  • UPC: 4260085533008


  • Label: Cavi


  • Number of Discs: 1


  • Composer: Johannes Brahms, Robert Fuchs


  • Orchestra/Ensemble: Danish String Quartet


  • Performer: Sebastian Manz