Marc-Andre Hamelin; Leopold String Trio
Release Date: 01 November 2006
Label: Hyperion Records Ltd
Packaging Type: Brilliant Case (Jewel Case size, Holds 2 CDs)
No of Units: 2
Barcode: 034571174716
Genres: Classical Chamber Music
Description
Hyperion is proud to present as its Record of the Month for November electrifying new performances of the three Brahms Piano Quartets: the celebrated Leopold String Trio is joined by Marc-Ande Hamelin.
The G minor quartet (1861—actually Brahms’s second foray into the genre) offers a heady mix of unbridled gypsy vigour cast within a musical architecture of symphonic mastery, characteristics not lost on Arnold Schoenberg who later made an orchestral arrangement. The following year saw the premiere of the A major quartet, Brahms himself at the piano in offering to the world a work which would be hugely popular during his lifetime before falling inexplicably to the periphery of the repertoire in recent times.
It was over a decade later, in 1873/4, that Brahms returned to his aborted C minor quartet: ‘Imagine a man who is just going to shoot himself, for there is nothing else to do’, wrote composer to publisher of this profoundly moving score. Much of the 1850s material is recast, and the resulting quartet is a tense masterpiece terminated by a cadence of perfunctory abruptness. Unsatisfied fatalism triumphs.
This generously filled set is concluded with the Op 117 Intermezzos for solo piano. One of four late groups of piano pieces Brahms composed with his beloved Clara Schumann very much in mind, these exquisite miniatures find an eloquent interpreter in Marc-Andre Hamelin.
The recorded sound here is astonishing, both in its immediacy and raw energy: every passionate nuance of Brahms’s Romantic vision is perfectly captured. Awards can be expected.
Tracklisting
Marc-Andre Hamelin, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra / Andrew Litton
Gothic Voices / Christopher Page
Alina Ibragimova, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment / Vladimir Jurowski
Mahan Esfahani
The Binchois Consort / Andrew Kirkman
Mishka Rushdie Momen
The Gesualdo Six / Owain Park
Takacs Quartet
Sally Walker
David Daly, Duncan Honeybourne, Ondrej Vrabec, Daniel Wiesner, Graham Walker, David Trippett
Andreas Willwohl & Daniel Heide
Rachel Talitman, Jean-Marc Fessard, Mavoudes Troullos, Pierre Quiriny, Ensemble Mendelssohn
La Real Camara; Emilio Moreno
Ektoras Tartanis
Theo Plath, Armand Djikoloum, Olivier Stankiewicz, Sakoto Doi, Jordi Carrasco Hjelm
Novi Piano Duo
