Johannes Brahms

Perhaps no recording of the two gorgeous Serenades has been suffused with such warmth and glow as Masur's little-known recordings with the Gewandhausorchester. The First has never been issued on CD, and, it appears, the Second has not even had an LP release! This now makes available through Australian Eloquence all of Kurt Masur's Brahms recordings on Philips - the symphonies, overtures and Hungarian Dances having been recently issued.

One of Jean-Yves Thibaudet's early Decca recitals, these are some of the most engaging and thrilling readings of a program of essentially concert etudes. To the Schumann, Thibaudet places the five posthumous variations as an appendix, and his reading of the Brahms Paganini is one of the most scintillating of all.

The glorious performances on this CD and on 476 2815 and 476 2816 have never before been available on CD (outside Japan). Taking full advantage of the Gewandhaus' characteristic aural glow, these readings will soon work themselves to the top of the list of the complete Brahms symphony cycles.

Symphony No. 1 receives a monumental performance with some delicious violin and oboe solos in the slow movement and the Gewandhausorchester's wind section delivers jewel after jewel in the Variations on a theme by Haydn.

Kurt Masur's invigorating and warm-hearted accounts of the Brahms Hungarian Dances are welcomed back to the catalogue.

One of this country’s finest and most popular singers, Dame Janet Baker has a special place in the hearts of music-lovers throughout the land. Since making her Covent Garden and New York debuts in 1966 she has become synonymous with a wide range of much-loved baroque and romantic repertoire. Janet Baker was made a Dame 25 years ago. Here, for the first time, EMI have gathered together some of her most memorable performances on one double CD.

This collection of five of Brahms’s chamber music masterpieces includes four with piano and all of these feature the supreme artistry of András Schiff. Both the quintets – for clarinet and for piano – are included; the recording of the Clarinet Quintet with Peter Schmidl with members of the New Vienna Octet, receives its first release on CD. The rarest of the chamber works on this collection is the set of Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann. Composed in 1854 for piano four-hands, Brahms’s biographer Malcolm MacDonald called it a ‘special act of solace’ for Clara Schumann, to whom they were dedicated. In fact, the title page reads, ‘Minor Variations on a Theme by Him, Dedicated to Her’. Here, Schiff is joined by his Hungarian compatriot Sir Georg Solti, at the piano. Also representing Hungary on this collection is the Takács Quartet.