Brahms: Complete String Quartets; Clarinet Sonatas

Johannes Brahms (Composer), Quartetto Italiano (Performer), Hephzibah Menuhin (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Quartetto Italiano, Hephzibah Menuhin
• Composer: Johannes Brahms
• Audio CD (November 11, 1997)
• SPARS Code: ADD
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Philips
• ASIN: B0000041N7
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #237,375 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fine sound and solid playing, July 8, 2002

By 

Craig Matteson (Saline, MI) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Brahms: Complete String Quartets; Clarinet Sonatas (Audio CD)

This is a fine sounding disk with solid interpretations of the music. This collection provides all three string quartets with the two sontatas for clarinet and piano. It seems an odd mix, but somehow it works in this collection.

Brahms writes so well for string quartet that I find myself wishing he had found a way to write more of them. Maybe he did and burned them. In any case, these are pieces to treasure and to listen to over and over again. And certainly you will want to hear different interpretations of these pieces.

George Pieterson has a beautiful tone and plays the clarinet sontas with hepzibah Menuhin on the piano. They perform well together and let us hear a part of the repertoire we don't get exposed to unless we are clarinetists or accompanists or relatives to clarinetists! I have always loved the tone of the clarinet and there is a lot to love in these recordings.

This fine recording is certainly worthy of a place in your collection.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars NATION SPEAKS TO NATION, March 18, 2006

By 

DAVID BRYSON (Glossop Derbyshire England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Brahms: Complete String Quartets; Clarinet Sonatas (Audio CD)

Of all 19th century composers Brahms is the most German and the least Italian. This makes it all the more pleasant to be able to recommend this account of his string quartets by the Italian Quartet as warmly as I do. Nothing on this pair of discs at all, either in the quartets or in the clarinet sonatas, strikes me as being my own idea of 'wrong'. Indeed nothing strikes me as being less than very good, and the performance of the A minor quartet at least is one that I would call completely outstanding. The players seem to understand Brahms's idiom perfectly, the playing itself is top-notch, and the recording, while perhaps not to the most spectacular modern standard, is right in every respect that really matters, particularly as regards the fullness of the sound.

Tempi throughout are well chosen. I found this to be particularly true of the tricky third movement of the C minor quartet. In this movement I might have liked just a little more prominence to be given to the lower of the two simultaneous melodies, but that is only a personal taste of my own, and the lower melody should not be completely equal to the higher in any case. Much more important is that the Italians do the trio section of this movement to absolute perfection, with the peculiar twanging effect that I always like to hear in the accompaniment. The A minor comes near absolute perfection for me from start to finish. Both the first movement, and even more so the second, need to be kept moving as they are here, the instrumental tone is superb throughout, and the minuet (another tricky piece to bring off) is judged to a nicety. In the third movement of the B flat the viola melody again is fervent and deeply felt as it should be, and the final set of variations is just about ideal too, particularly in the tempo rubato, where I have always thought Brainin's phrasing in the Amadeus version to be stiff and unconvincing.

This set also includes extremely fine accounts of the two clarinet sonatas, a convincing alternative to another fine disc I have where the performers are Thea King and Clifford Benson. These sonatas are Brahms's last chamber works, and they have an elegiac feel about them, particularly the first of the two. The whole effect here is richer, especially in terms of the clarinet sound, than from King and Benson, and I would not like to say which I prefer overall. For all the `sunset' mood of the works there is a good deal of forcefulness called for now and again, and these players are not afraid of that. Hepzibah Menuhin gives full value in the big chords, and while no sense of rush would be appropriate the speeds are not allowed to drag either, and rightly not.

I can't really say that you will find much illumination in the liner note, and I'd suggest that if you look for the influence of Beethoven that the author purports to find in the first movement of the C minor quartet you are not going to find it. It doesn't read to me either as if he has appreciated the significance of the wonderful slow movement of this quartet, where there really is influence from Beethoven - from no less than the cavatina of his B flat quartet op 130. The climactic phrase of the opening melody in particular recalls the same point in Beethoven's sublime inspiration, and as played here it stands up very well to the comparison.

All in all, a really admirable set despite this minor let-down. If Germany itself has produced a better version since the great days of the Busch Quartet I can't offhand recall which it is.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome!, May 26, 2010

By 

Hiram Gomez Pardo (Valencia, Venezuela) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Brahms: Complete String Quartets; Clarinet Sonatas (Audio CD)

As I have expressed it before, Brahms'genuine greatness, authentic expression and enraptured musicality must be found in his formidable chamber works. Without the well known pressure of the great audiences respect the Symphonic field as the musical inheritor, here you can feel the great German composer working with free spontaneity and astounding vitality.

In what concerns the Quartetto Italiano, the texture of the polyphonic texture should not surprise us. I must confess my whole admiration elicited by this Quartet since the first time I knew about them.

This album in particular, expresses with overwhelming eloquence the touch of class and charm of their sound.

Don't miss it.