Johannes Brahms

Robin and Tim formed their Duo in 2008, and quickly discovered a strong rapport in playing together. Their concerts and recording together since then have constituted a small but precious part of their busy careers.

“The desire to make this recording built up slowly over a number of years. Viola recitals are increasingly rare, and a recording seemed one way to honour the decades of close acquaintance with these beloved jewels of the viola repertoire. Tim and I felt that we might find inspiration and spontaneity in a concert performance that could elude us in a studio recording.” Robin Ireland

Mischa Maisky will be 65 on 10 January 2013; he made his first recording for Deutsche Grammophon 30 years ago; and he left the Soviet Union 40 years ago.

10 Classic DG Albums, balanced carefully between his great concerto and recital CDs and presented in Original Jacket artwork.

Elegant slipcase presentation, with 10 mint-packs offering gatefold presentation for each album inside.

This release is not a limited edition.

Since their début as a piano duo in 2008, the twins Christina and Michelle Naughton have proved little short of sensational in concert halls all round the world. They both studied at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia as well as with a number of distinguished teachers, including Claude Frank, Gary Graffman and Seymour Lipkin, granting them an insight into the most disparate musical styles that goes far beyond a mere sovereign command of their instrument. This stylistic and technical mastery is abundantly clear from their début album on the ORFEO label, in which the Naughton sisters demonstrate supreme flexibility in affording listeners a varied glimpse of the repertory for piano four hands and two pianos. Their programme spans almost two centuries in the history of music, extending, as it does, from Mozart’s D major Sonata K 448 to Lutoslawski’s 'Variations on a Theme by Paganini' – a theme taken up and explored by many other composers. The Naughton sisters invest this work with a joviality that effortlessly communicates itself to the listener. Indeed, the 20th- and 21st-century repertory in general is one of their central, self-evident concerns.

Brahms’s Haydn Variations is another well-known work that belongs to the same genre, its climaxes demanding a tonal splendour that seems positively orchestral in character and that the Naughton sisters can produce when necessary. By contrast, their performances of Mendelssohn’s Allegro brillant and Schubert’s A minor Allegro (“Lebensstürme”) are distinguished by cantabile playing of simple beauty and by scales and chords which dynamically and agogically are subtly attuned to each other’s instrumentalism. Two 20th-century classics prove infectiously exciting with their vivid dotted rhythms: the First Spanish Dance from Falla’s 'La vida breve' and Ravel’s 'La valse' in the version for two pianos prepared by the composer himself. Listeners who enjoy this recording, which was made in the broadcasting studio of Radio Bremen, can look forward to Christina and Michelle Naughton’s forthcoming recitals at the start of the 2012/13 season, including appearances at the Herkulessaal in Munich and the Philharmonie in Berlin.

After more than 10 years missing on the market, this recording is now back in the catalogue. Recorded live at the Edinburgh Festival in September 1953.

In this very enjoyable sound quality double CD we can appreciate the “chamber” dimension given by the two artists to the Brahms’ Sonate. The sound is soft and mellow, beautiful and clean at the same time, without any harshness spreading out full of poetry in the slow movements.

Unique authorized edition with the permission of the Goldstein family

Otto Klemperer was born on 14th May 1885 in Breslau, Silesia (now Wroclaw, Poland) and died on 6th July 1973 in Zurich and hence next year we mark 40 years since his passing. He had had a remarkable career as a young man but it was at the age of 70 that he started a series of recordings that would not only establish him as an internationally renowned conductor but provide EMI with a catalogue of recordings that became and remain touchstones.

Besides being a great conductor Otto Klemperer was also a composer and when listening to his compositions you are left in no doubt that he was much influenced by the music of Brahms. It was therefore natural for Walter Legge, founder of the Philharmonia Orchestra and one of EMI’s chief recording producers should want to acquire recordings of the four symphonies of Brahms to set alongside those of Beethoven. The set also includes the Academic Festival Overture and Tragic Overtures and the “Haydn” Variations. For the soloist in the Alto Rhapsody Legge turned to the great mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig.

In 1961 Klemperer returned to recording Brahms by committing his classic performance of Ein deutsches Requiem to disc. With the soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as soloists and the magnificent Philharmonia Chorus this recording has remained a firm fixture in the EMI Classics catalogue since its first release.

“The young Turkish pianist Idil Biret, who only turned twenty yesterday, reveals a masterly touch in the Handel Variations on this album. Here we are very clearly in the presence of what is known as a “natural”, a supremely talented musician. Taught by Jean Doyen and Jacques Février, she seems in this recording to have the innate elegance of the former and the clear authority of the latter. I make no bones about it: Idil Biret’s youthful prowess leaves me speechless… a virtuosity that overcomes every technical difficulty and flows so effortlessly that it puts certain, more “considered”, rival performances in the shade… I unreservedly applaud this album of excellent piano playing, a recording made with the emphasis perhaps just a touch less on charm than on brilliance. When it comes to the Variations on a Theme by Paganini , I shall quote Remy Stricker: “Only an exceptional pianistic genius could deliver the ideal version of such an inhuman work”... Idil Biret’s version is of such high quality that I have to speak in terms of this young pianist’s genius… I have nothing but admiration for the stunning brio with which she approaches the fast passages (starting with the first two variations of each Book!), indeed I confess to being captivated by it. Similarly, I was frequently enchanted by her poetic readings of some of the slow variations, which she plays with simplicity, avoiding effusive excess. All in all, this is an album to compete with Katchen’s.”

- Review of original LP release on Vega Records, 1961

Pianist Andre Gorog has already been awarded a Diapason 5 for this recording of the solo piano version of Brahms’ Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel.

A historical disc with Pau Casals performing Bruch, Boccherini and Brahms’s Double concerto with Jacques Thibaud and various orchestras (including the London Symphony Orchestra) reissued from old HMV and RCA Victor recordings.