Johannes Brahms

Continuing C-Avi’s survey of chamber works, critically acclaimed musician Tanja Tetzlaff records Brahms’ Sonatas for Piano and Cello, accompanied by pianist Gunilla Sussmann.

Melodiya presents a 4 CD set of recordings by pianist Grigory Sokolov. One of the best contemporary representatives of the St. Petersburg piano school, Sokolov is now well known in Russia and beyond. He tours around the globe delighting the audiences of the old and new worlds. Sokolov is a master of now rare “intellectual” pianism. However, unlike the great piano intellectual of the 20th century Glenn Gould, Sokolov prefers live concerts to studio work. “The biggest chasm is the one between a microphone and an individual,” the musician believes.

Following her critically hailed Deutsche Grammophon debut, Echoes of Time – and growing acclaim for her concert appearances – violin virtuosa Lisa Batiashvili meets every challenge of Brahms’s monumental Violin Concerto.

With maestro Christian Thielemann and the instrumentalists of the Staatskapelle Dresden, for whom German Romanticism is the birthright, Lisa Batiashvili’s elegant, eloquent artistry finds ideal partners. Meeting Thielemann exceeded all her expectations: “. . .his conducting was wild and fiery. At the same time I always had the feeling that I was being supported by the orchestra and that I had time to react.”

Rounding out the programme are Clara Schumann chamber pieces which Batiashvili plays together with young pianist Alice Sara Ott. For the first time in their careers they teamed up to play the three romances.

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 years 1919-24 saw Fritz Kreisler re-establish himself after the First World War. Initial hostility to him in America was eventually overcome, and the resumption of his recording schedule saw a steady stream of inimitable offerings from the most beloved violinist of the time. There are rarities in this sequence of acoustic sides, not least his recording of black American Clarence Cameron White’s spiritual setting and an elusive 1921 recording of Charles Dawes’s Melody in A. Additionally, Kreisler never rerecorded his beautiful performance of his own Aucassin and Nicolette.

Ward Marston, producer and audio restoration producer

Renowned for the precision of his execution, it was said that Reiner could ‘stand before an orchestra he has never seen before and conduct a new piece at first sight without verbal explanation, by means of manual technique alone’ (he later taught at the Curtis Institute, where he unsuccessful attempted to moderate the young Leonard Bernstein). His temper was equally legendary (he was once described as ‘A despot with a baton’), but his performances, perhaps because of his uncannily tiny beat, were models of clarity and precision, never losing sight of the longer line, and always renowned for their glittering vitality.

The recordings here are the sum of his orchestral recordings made for the Decca Record Company. His Strauss is searing, and the thrill of the Brahms and Dvorak Dances has perhaps never been equaled – helped immeasurably, of course, by Decca’s state-of-the-art recording.

Vintage Karajan recordings of Brahms with the Vienna Philharmonic and Philharmonia orchestras, re-mastered and available at super budge price.

Alfred Brendel and Walter Klien perform the original two piano arrangements of Brahms’ Hungarian and Dvorak’s Slavonic dances.

Now principal clarinettist with the SWR Baden-Baden Orchestra, Kilian Herold is the perfect advocate for these works by these three contemporaries of each other, Brahms, Reinecke and Draeseke. Accompanied by internationally acclaimed pianist Amir Katz, these are beautifully recorded and performed.