Brahms: String Sextets

Johannes Brahms (Composer), L'Archibudelli (Orchestra), Anner Bylsma (Performer), Vera Beths (Performer), Jurgen Kussmaul (Performer), Marilyn McDonald (Performer), Guus Jeukendrup (Performer), Kenneth Slowik (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Anner Bylsma, Vera Beths, Jurgen Kussmaul, Marilyn McDonald, Guus Jeukendrup, et al.
• Orchestra: L'Archibudelli
• Composer: Johannes Brahms
• Audio CD (July 23, 1996)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B000002BZM
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #314,831 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous!, December 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Brahms: String Sextets (Audio CD)

I prefer this recording to the one headed by Isaac Stern. Why? Because Stern and his team deliver an old-fashioned Brahms, with sluggish tempi, little contrast in articulation, and little feel for the subtleties of Brahms's part-writing. L'Archibudelli deliver the exact opposite. It's a pity that too many people still play Brahms as if his music were a reflection of the typical image of the composer as a fat bearded turd. There's a lot more to Brahms than that, and I'm glad that L'Archibudelli make this a point in their recording of the Sextets. Bravo!

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Revolution!, November 23, 1999

By 

D. Gammelgard "dave_ga" (Falun, Sweden) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brahms: String Sextets (Audio CD)

This cd brings out some amazing aspects of the Brahms sextets. Brahms playing in general have never been close to this! The instruments are strung with gut strings, as the instruments were at the time it was written, which creates some really unique sounds and gives an amazingly free bowing phrasing. When the steel-string sonorities and the constant vibrato has been removed, a pure and vital sound is created which gives so much to the music of Johannes Brahms, at least in the sextets. I really recommend this cd to anyone who wants to hear something very beautiful and unique! I truly hope this opens up the ears of the public and most important, the musicians, so that we can create new worlds for the music of Brahms and his contemporaries to exist in. And express the music in its own true colours!

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing performance, May 25, 2007

By 

jt52 "jt52" (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brahms: String Sextets (Audio CD)

I applaud the L'Archibudelli ensemble's efforts to bring out more clearly the polyphonic interplay of instruments in these sextets -- it's very much in synch with Brahms' way of thinking about music -- and their brisk tempi. Both are admirable ideas.

The problem is that these performances are inexpressive and sometimes plainly unmusical. I'm laying this squarely at the feet of the 1st violinist in the ensemble (who I believe is Vera Beths). Beths (presumably) is a violinist who plays everything pretty much at the same dynamic and projects little expressivity, which is a killer for such beautiful and heartfelt music as these sextets. The opening violin melody in the 1st movement of Op. 36 is simply mangled -- this performance doesn't make sense of it. And the dramatic opening movement of Op. 18 is played with a metronomic, unvarying beat that completely fails to bring out drama that is so important to it. The accents (sforzandi) are underplayed and underemphasized. They make the Allegro into a kind of saccharine muzak.

I want to praise Anner Bylsma, the star 1st cellist in this ensemble. His playing is very powerful and full of the emotion that seems lacking in manyh other passages. As a result, the performance of the Andante variations from the Op. 18 set -- the most famous track on this disc -- is exciting and sweeping, because the 1st cello has such a big role in it.

To better understand why this CD was just so disappointing, I went back to the old Amadeus Quartet version on DG that I have known for years. The Amadues recording is pretty good but not great or even very good but the musicians make sense of the Op. 36 opening -- it's as if L'Archibudelli, in their performance, were trying to speak a foreign language -- and turn it into a memorable theme.

So an unsatisfactory recording. Especially stay away if you are unfamiliar with this music.