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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Brahms: Violin Concerto & String Sextet No. 2Recorded Feb 2010, Sociedad Filarmónica de Bilbao (Concerto) & Sept 2010, Teldex Studio Berlin (Sextet)
The booklet of Isabelle Faust’s new recording includes an essay written by her regarding the performing editions used and the significance of the violinist Joseph Joachim in the string works of Johannes Brahms, as seen from a performer’s point of view. Since Brahms did not belong to a generation of composers who mastered several different instruments – as had Bach or Mozart – and composed from the perspective of a pianist, his exchange of ideas with Joachim, which in the case of the Violin Concerto lasted almost a year, was of decisive importance for the final form of the piece, one of the most difficult in the repertoire. Isabelle uses the rarely played cadenza by Ferruccio Busoni, which dates from 1913. Brahms got to know Busoni as a child prodigy and recommended the young pianist in a number of artistic circles: ‘What Schumann did for me, I will do for Busoni.’ The spirit of Joseph Joachim also hovers over the second work on this recording, for the composer regarded the violinist as his most important adviser in the realm of chamber music too. In the case of his Sextet, however, the most perceptible influence is that of the doomed love affair between the composer and the soprano Agathe von Siebold. That Brahms was unable to overcome their separation with a light heart is clear from the monument in sound to his lost romance in the lyrical second theme of the first movement. ‘A-GA- D/H-E’1 proclaims the sequence of notes making up the motif (bars 162 ff). Isabelle generously credits Christopher Hogwood, Robert Pascall, Stefan Weymar and Douglas Woodfull-Harris for their active support in all questions relating to the manuscript and the first edition of Op.36 and for generously making available a prepublication copy of the new Bärenreiter edition. Gramophone Magazine gave Isabelle Faust its Young Artist of the Year Award for her first recording of sonatas by Béla Bartók, in 1997 [now reissued on hm gold with volume 2]. The year 2010 marked a new stage in her recording career: Diapason voted her CD of Bach Partitas and Sonatas a Diapason d’Or of the Year, while her complete set of the Beethoven Sonatas with Alexander Melnikov, received the Gramophone Award for Best Chamber Recording. Composed of around 40 musicians from 20 different nations, and independent of external sponsorship, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1997 by the players themselves and Claudio Abbado. In 1998, at the age of 22, Daniel Harding became Principal Guest Conductor; in 2003 he was named Music Director and he has served as Principal Conductor since 2008, conducting around a quarter of the orchestra’s projects each season. He is also Music Director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the LSO and Music Partner of the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra. “a poetic player with an irresistibly warm sound, a tightly controlled vibrato and an athletic technique." BBC Music Magazine “What makes Isabelle Faust's Violin Concerto special is that she both thinks and feels the music freshly...Equally valuable is the sense of interplay between Faust and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra .Strong personality though she is, she never treats the work as a star vehicle...the orchestra retains a presence, allowing the soloist to step centre stage but reacting discreetly to her thoughts.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2011 ***** “Faust emphasises the sensitivity, the aching loneliness and doubt that lurks behind the music, and the best moments are the most unexpected...A refreshing take on repertoire that's often presented with more emphasis on macho punch. Top-notch, affectionate and imaginative playing from all concerned.” Classic FM Magazine, May 2011 ***** “In the precise, exquisitely sensitive and understated vision of Isabelle Faust, it is one of the most beautiful and rapturous performances I have ever heard...Do not miss the gorgeous playing of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra with conductor Daniel Harding: the texture is like velvet.” Glasgow Herald, 10th April 2011 “With a string section of just 32, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra achieve an unusual degree of clarity, with the important wind parts prominent. And Faust is often happy to allow soloists from the orchestra to take centre stage...the fiery parts of the concerto are particularly successful and the lyrical episodes very touching...this performance [of the Sextet] offers near-perfect balance and integration of sound” Gramophone Magazine, June 2011 “The relatively small band of the Gustav Mahler Chamber Orchestra supports [Faust] with an accompaniment of great textural clarity, yet this is in no way a small-scale performance. On the contraty, Faust is authoritative and passionate throughout, always alert to the rhapsodic aspects of this most innately classical of Romantic concertos...This is altogether an outstanding disc.” International Record Review, April 2011 “Her performance is wonderfully proportioned...never grandiose nor unnecessarily rhetorical, with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra supplying perfectly scaled support...those who prefer [their Brahms] expressively searching and introspective should love it, with the bonus of the delicate and deft account of the Sextet.” The Guardian, 24th February 2011 **** “Backed by detailed research into the metronome markings used by Joseph Joachim, the Violin Concerto’s dedicatee, Faust and Harding have come up with an interpretation that is restrained, slimmed-down and light on its feet.” The Telegraph, 25th March 2011 *** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Brahms - Chamber Music for Strings
For several years, the Verdi Quartet has undertaken to record the complete Brahms chamber music for strings. Hänssler Classics is proud to present another volume of their supreme artistry. | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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| |  | Brahms - Piano Trios
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| |  | Brahms - The String Sextets
“Britain’s premier chamber ensemble” (The Times) “Gorgeous chamber music-making - urgently recommended” Fanfare “A red wine, red-meat disc from the must-have boutique label” The Independent on Sunday “The Brahms String Sextets… make an ideal coupling on disc. The Nash Ensemble, with a particularly strong line-up of violas and cellos, offer superb new versions, crisp and clear, beautifully co-ordinated, with plenty of light and shade, and infectious springing of rhythms.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2007 “The Nash Ensemble, with a particularly strong line-up of violas and cellos, offer superb new versions, crisp and clear, beautifully coordinated, with plenty of light and shade, and infectious springing of rhythms.
There is real precision and polish of ensemble here that marks the Nash performances out.
The players appear to be listening keenly and responding to one another. The Nash omit exposition repeats in the first movement of each sextet, unlike the older versions. As a sampler try the delectable third movement Scherzo of No 1, which with the Nash Ensemble is beautifully and wittily sprung, one of the gems of Brahms's chamber music.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 | | | Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days. |
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| | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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| |  | Brahms - Chamber Music
live recording | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Brahms: Four Hand Piano Music, Volume 13
Classic FM Magazine commenting that Matthies and Köhn’s “performances are warm, clear and forthright, while deftly side-stepping the piano duet medium’s tendency to sound turgid.” | | | (also available to download from $6.00) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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| |  | Brahms: String Sextet No. 2
“On the whole the Leipzigers don't drive the music too hard, but there's a motoring energy to the first movements of both Brahms works. And when the Sextet's second theme comes soaring in for the first time the effect is rather like hang-gliding from the top of a mountain. The dark urgency of the Quartet's first movement is just as impressive, and the whole performance has deep seriousness, as well as superb polished precision, that holds the attention right to the end.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2005 **** | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Brahms: String Sextet No. 2 in G major, Op. 36
Gunther Weiss (cello), Wilhelm Hubner (violin) Vienna Konzerthaus Quartet | |
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| |  | Brahms: Sextets
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