Customer Reviews

Brahms - Liebeslieder-Walzer (Love Song Waltzes), Opp. 52, 65 ; 3 Quartets, Op. 64

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is still the best recording of the Liebeslieder Walzer, especially if you like them by a vocal quartet. The performance is stylish, and the soloists, particularly the men, have gorgeous voices. If you prefer a chorus, Helmut Rilling's version on Acanta is beautiful, but hard to find. The recorded sound is very good.

Recording is about as good as it gets. Excellent singing; wonderful pianists. The best of Brahms tradition. Technically clean audio. Recommended. Can't beat Fassbaender nor Fischer-Dieskau!

The reviewer below has gone overboard about this starry recording. Despite the presence of Peter Schreier and Fischer-Dieskau, the male side of the quartet lacks charm, and although Fassbainder and Mathis make up for that, I didn't find myself smiling very often. This is supposed to be joyous music, the epitome of friends gathered around the parlor piano. Here it sounds like professional singers reading a score, very well to be sure, but without much love, which is the theme of these dances. I'll stick with the Marlboro recording on Sony and the historic EMI set that features the incomparable Dinu Lipati and Nadia Boulanger as pianists.

Brahms Liebeslieder-Walzer are true singers pieces.

Sawallish and the singers...

Superlative!

Brahms wrote this set of short pieces for amateur singers to use at home. Most modern recordings use a choir. Nothing wrong with that but this version is probably closer to the original intent. Here we have a major pianist and a major conductor and chamber musician playing the four-hand piano part accompanying Soprano Edith Mathis, Mezzo Brigitte Fassbender, Tenor Peter Schrier and Baritone Deitrich Fischer-Dieskau...a pretty high powered combination. Since all the "players" are German speaking natives there is no question that the text will be meaningfully expressed through the music. The only possible caveat is that Fischer-Dieskau is captured in his vocal decline which gives him a bit of a huffy quality to his singing. Buit we live in an imperfect world, don't we?