Brahms: Double Concerto for Violin & Cello in A minor, Op. 102

“The roster of artists… is breathtaking… The soloists revel in the multiplicity of ideas.” Penguin Guide (Beethoven)

“The most desirable of versions… it deserves the strongest recommendation.” Penguin Guide (Brahms Double)

“The warm, expansive music-making confirms even more clearly than before that the old view of this as one of Beethoven's weaker works is quite wrong. The three Soviet soloists revel in the multiplicity of ideas, with Richter in the spare piano part providing a tautening influence.” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition

“Vadim Repin's performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto have met with much press acclaim, and one sees why. His dazzling technique aside, the firm, warm tone, magnificent control of phrasing and rhythmic incisiveness are all tailor-made for the piece. ...Riccardo Chailly's direction of the Gewandhausorchester is with him all the way. Repin is joined by Truls Mørk for an equally memorable account of the Double Concerto. ...the warmth and skill they bring the Andante, characterising their instruments as the two protagonists of an intimate dialogue, makes this the high-point of the disc.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2009 *****

“…Chailly… conveys wonderfully well the epic quality of the huge opening tutti. Repin relishes the work's moments of delicacy as much as the declamatory ones. Nothing is ever effortful: even the tortuous double-stopping seems to leave him entirely unfazed.” Gramophone Magazine, March 2009

“Despite Vadim Repin's formidable reputation as a Brahms interpreter, his recording of the Violin Concerto will doubtless prove controversial in some quarters. The glamour and majesty of his playing leap out at you from every phrase; this is a performance on the grandest of scales, full of high drama and extravagant rhetorical gestures. Conducted by Riccardo Chailly, it's also notably slow. The dividends are enormous in the second half: the adagio has great nobility, while the finale is weighty and detailed as well as virtuosic. The first movement, however, has a ponderous quality that reinforces old-fashioned views of Brahms's music as being stately. Its companion piece is the Double Concerto, in which Repin and Chailly are joined by Norwegian cellist Truls Mork. This is a wonderful performance, and certainly the more consistent of the two. Chailly's conducting has cragginess as well as grandeur, while Repin and Mork are thrilling and tender. Recommended - though if you prefer the Violin Concerto done with more intimacy, you need to look elsewhere.” The Guardian, 13th February 2009

“…a fine portrait of the great French cellist Paul Tortelier at the height of his career…[His]personality is stamped on every bar of these live performances...It is specially valuable to have his view of the Elgar Cello Concerto…in a live recording which gives an even warmer, more spontaneous-sounding view of the piece in his distinctive interpretation.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2008

“This generous collection of three favourite works provides a fine portrait of the great French cellist Paul Tortelier at the height of his career in the post-war period. It is specially valuable to have his view of the Elgar Cello Concerto, which he recorded commercially at least three times. Here it comes in a live recording which gives an even warmer, more spontaneoussounding view of the piece in his distinctive interpretation.
Tortelier strongly believed that Elgar's markings should not be exaggerated, in particular the marking tenuto, at which many interpreters bring the music practically to a halt. In the second- movement Scherzo, for example, the drawing out of the tempo in two key places is markedly less here than in most rival readings.
Tortelier also felt that the portamento slides should be kept to a minimum in the first movement, something he was able to achieve thanks to his very large hands. Even so, there is no lack of warmth in the dedicated slow movement or the meditative epilogue, which are given their full emotional weight.
The performance of Brahms's Double Concerto has similar qualities, and is important too for demonstrating what a fine violinist Tortelier's son Yan Pascal is. The bright purity of his violin tone contrasts illuminatingly with the richness of his father's cello tone.
The performance of the Debussy Sonata dates from much earlier, a 1959 studio recording, which yet brings out the natural spontaneity with which Tortelier tackled this improvisational work with its many stops and starts.
Recording quality is generally good, though in the Elgar the audience is irritatingly bronchial at times.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Here is a Double Concerto to listen to again and again. Not least because it is rather unusual. The Capuçon brothers are accomplished chamber musicians and they often dig into this music as though in a chamber concert, taking time to explore, passing ideas between themselves. It doesn’t displace the recent Fischer/Müller-Schott, but sits alongside” James Inverne, Gramophone Magazine

“Gautier Capuçon launches into the opening cello solo with a rhapsodic freedom and expressive abandon that seems to sweep all before it. The performance is outstanding” The Guardian

“…here's a very fine reading of Brahm's Double Concerto from the stellar young Capuçon brothers. The other striking aspect about this performance is the sheer range of colour, not only from the soloists but also from the Mahler Youth Orchestra, who play their hearts out for Myung-Whun Chung in this most symphonic of concertos.” Gramophone Magazine, February 2008

“The stellar young Capuçon brothers seem incapable of setting a foot wrong on disc and they put their considerable chamber-music experience to great use in Brahms's final orchestral work, with cellist Gautier Capuçon proving an eloquent lead in the vehement first movement.
The other striking aspect about this performance is the sheer range of colour, not only from the soloists but also from the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, who play their hearts out for Myung-Whun Chung in this most symphonic of concertos. If Oistrakh and Fournier are still irresistible in the slow movement, offering a perfect balance of melodic lines that are lovingly cherished but never saccharine, the Capuçons are still very impressive, and their finale is full of vitality, making much of the folk-tinged inflections and achieving a seemingly telepathic unanimity in their shared passages.
For a change from the usual concerto companion we get Brahms's Clarinet Quintet, written in 1891, four years after the Double Concerto. In this coupling it's easy to hear the Quintet's famous autumnal quality prefigured in the outer sections of the concerto's Andante.
Paul Meyer is an ideal protagonist, producing a wide array of mellow shadings in the opening movement, yet never underplaying the more agitated passages within the piece, notably the Presto of the third movement. The quartet are minutely responsive to Meyer's every move and even seasoned Brahms aficionados will find new detail to relish in both the performances here.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“The partnership of Julia Fischer and Yakov Kreizberg… really comes into its own in the symphonic proportions of Brahms's Violin Concerto. From Fischer's opening imposing entry, it's clear that Kreizberg and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra are at one with her every nuance and tempo fluctuation - dramatic, fiery and impetuous at first but then beautifully lyrical and introverted in the second idea. ...the Double Concerto... Fischer and her partner Daniel Müller-Schott are absolutely on the same musical wavelength delivering a blisteringly intense performance supported by outstandingly responsive playing from the Netherlands Philharmonic.” BBC Music Magazine, Proms 2007 *****

“…Julia Fischer offers this ideal Brahms coupling in strong and sympathetic readings, joined in the Double Concerto by her brilliant young compatriot cellist, Daniel Müller-Schott. Her performance never feels self-conscious or too studied and her range of tone and dynamic is extreme, bringing pianissimi of breathtaking delicacy. ...in the finale she lets the tempo relax just enough to allow a persuasive spring in the rhythms, bringing out the Hungarian dance flavour.” Gramophone Magazine, August 2007

“..the Double Concerto one of the most beautiful and idiomatic readings on disc in recent years.” Sunday Times ****

“
Others offer tauter and brisker accounts of the first movement but Fischer amply justifies her spacious and flexible speeds in the feeling of spontaneity. Her performance never feels selfconscious or too studied and her range of tone and dynamic is extreme, bringing pianissimi of breathtaking delicacy. Fischer's slow movement, too, is expansive while in the finale she lets the tempo relax just enough to allow a persuasive spring in the rhythms, bringing out the Hungarian dance flavour.
The Double Concerto is not nearly as expansive: no doubt the influence of Müller-Schott was important here as the cello takes the lead in introducing each theme, with the cellist matching his partner in warmth and brilliance. Fischer and Müller-Schott are relaxed and easily lyrical in the slow movement, brilliant and thrusting in the finale. An outstanding disc which stands high on the list of this perfect coupling.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

‘In the Brahms, Oistrakh and Fournier make an incomparable team. The eloquence of Fournier’s phrasing and Oistrakh’s golden tone are beyond praise. Helped by a first-class recording and excellent orchestral playing, Oistrakh’s performance of the Bruch is a winner.’ (The Gramophone)

“Labels such as LSO Live bring altered priorities and fresh perspectives. When did a studio-based company last contemplate recording Brahms's Double Concerto with soloists drawn from within the orchestra? Brahms wrote the work with Joachim and his colleague in the Joachim Quartet, Robert Hausmann, in mind. It has a chamber-music dimension to it, yet it's also a work of real symphonic power. Haitink's accompaniment is superb, allowing the soloists the space for the lyric outpourings at the heart of the work. The sweet-toned Gordan Nikolitch and the burlier-sounding, though endlessly responsive Tim Hugh are perfectly matched, and grow ever closer and more eloquent as the romantic, at times almost operatic, colloquy of the two opening movements unfolds. After which, slippered ease and remembered passion is the order of the day in a sweetly judged reading of the finale. The recording, rich and immediate, brings out the tactile quality of Brahms's writing.
Haitink's 1990 Boston recording of the symphony has a certain Mediterranean glow to it.
In this imposing and beautifully shaded new LSO performance, we return north again with a reading that's weightier and even more cleanly articulated than his 1973 Amsterdam version.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010