Als Elmar Lehnen im Jahr 2000 von St. Anna, Windberg, an die große Seifert-Orgel der Päpstlichen Marienbasilika zu Kevelaer berufen wurde, war die Kirchenmusikszene Mönchengladbachs um eine besondere Farbe ärmer. Der junge, energische Organist und charismatische Chorleiter aus Hinsbeck hat sich seitdem immer mal wieder in der Stadt sehen und hören lassen, als Instrumentalist ebenso wie als Leiter des gemischten Nettetaler Kalobrhi-Chores.

Jetzt legt Lehnen bei dem für seine klanglich höchstwertigen Produktionen in der Klassik-Branche geschätzten Label audite eine CD vor, auf der er mit dem Jazz-Posaunisten Hansjörg Fink das tut, was er am liebsten macht: improvisieren. Diese Kunst der freiheitlichen, spontanen Verarbeitung musikalischer Ideen hat Lehnen schon bei seinem ersten Orgellehrer in Lobberich gelernt, bei Wolfgang Seifen. Als dessen Nachfolger an einer der bedeutendsten deutschen Orgeln, dem mit 149 Registern riesigen, spätromantisch disponierten Instrument, überrascht der 48-Jährige nun mit einer ausgewachsenen Requiem-Vertonung, die auch in Kevelaer entstanden ist. Mehr als eine Stunde währen die Improvisationen über die gregorianischen Choräle, die der Totenmesse zugrunde liegen. In der ungewöhnlichen Kombination von Tenor-Posaune und Orgel liegt ein natürlicher Reiz der Musik, die sich immer wieder aufmacht, extreme Emotionen, zeitgenössischen musikalischen Ausdruck und jahrhundertealte Tradition miteinander zu verknüpfen.

Naturgemäß spielt sich die melodiöse Präsenz der Tenorposaune in den Vordergrund. Hansjörg Fink gebietet über eine erstaunliche Palette an Klängen und rhythmischen Motiven. Lehnens Part ist vielfach der des inspirierenden Begleiters, der jedoch (Libera me) sein orchestrales Instrument voll einbringt, wenn es der Zusammenhang gebietet. Dieses "Requiem" ist eine ernste, eine von spiritueller Zuversicht durchdrungene Musik, in der zwei Spitzenkönner aufs Beste miteinander kommunizieren.

L’œuvre s’achève dans un tourbillon de rythmes, presque violent mais d’une fougue rafraîchissante.

Dirigeant un Philharmonique de Vienne bouillonnant pour sa première invitation à Lucerne, Mitropoulos cherche à l’évidence à en découdre, imprimant aux cordes des coups d’archet d’une précision diabolique, leur imposant des pizzicatos s’abattant tels des boulets de canon, prenant un malin plaisir à rechercher la surprise dans son accompagnement. Un début en fanfare pour cette série.

Here, on two discs, are the four valedictory clarinet works Brahms bequeathed to Richard Mühlfeld and, of course, to posterity. Brahms knew Mühlfeld from the Meiningen Court Orchestra, an ensemble the composer had conducted and in which Mühlfeld played principal clarinet. As far as we know, Brahms did not play the clarinet himself, but there was no indication that he solicited Mühlfeld’s technical advice in writing for the instrument as he had Joseph Joachim’s when composing his Violin Concerto.

In 1890, for all practical purposes, Brahms considered his composing career done with the completion of his String Quintet in G Major, op 111. He was already feeling unwell and had begun putting his affairs in order. In the fall of that year, he asked his publisher, Simrock, to take stock and make an accounting of his works; and a few months later, he wrote his will, leaving his collection of original manuscripts to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. Brahms had decided to rest on his laurels and live out whatever time he had left in leisure.

Obviously, that didn’t happen, for thanks to Mühlfeld, Brahms was suddenly inspired in 1891 to compose the Clarinet Trio, op. 114, and its companion, the Clarinet Quintet, op 115. And more was yet to come four sets of late piano pieces, opp 116 & 119, then the two follow-up clarinet sonatas (alternately for viola), op 120/1 and 2, the Four Serious Songs, op 121, and finally, the 11 Chorale Preludes for organ, op 122.

Undoubtedly, it was Mühlfeld who brought Brahms out of retirement, but I suspect that if Mühlfeld’s instrument had been anything other than the clarinet his entreaties to Brahms would have met with stubborn resistance. There was something about the timbre of the clarinet reedy, rich mix of autumn colors and the feelings of loneliness and longing evoked by fallen leaves and the stirrings of approaching winter resonated with Brahms’s fatalistic mood. All four of the works he composed for the instrument reflect a sense of wistful melancholy and of turning inward.

very familiar with these works, as I am with the Mandelring Quartet from a number of its other recordings. I can not say the same, however, for clarinetist Laura Ruiz Ferreres, cellist Danjulo Ishizaka, or pianist Christoph Berner, but I can say that from the moment disc 1 of this set began to play, I knew I was in the presence of something special. To quote a phrase uttered by Brahms’s friend, Eusebius Mandyczewski, upon hearing a performance of the clarinet trio. It is as though the instruments were in love with each other; That’s the impression conveyed by these performances.

Laura Ruiz Ferreres was born in Spain, but currently calls Frankfurt, Germany, home. There she is professor of clarinet at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst. Prior to that, she played principal clarinet in Berlin’s Comic Opera Orchestra. She studied with practically a Who’s Who of the clarinet world: Joan Enric Lluna, Anthony Pay, and Karl-Heinz Steffens, and participated in master classes given by Thea King, Andrew Marriner, Michael Collins, Karl Leister, and Walter Boeykens.

There are many wonderful recordings of these works, and as beautiful as the music-making on these discs is, I wouldn’t want to be without the clarinet trio performed by David Shifrin, David Finckel, and Wu Han on Artistled, or without the performance by Richard Stoltzman, Yo-Yo Ma, and Emanuel Ax on Sony; and most of all, I wouldn’t want to be without the recording by Martin Fröst, Torleif Thedeen, and Roland Pöntinen on a BIS CD, which also includes the two clarinet sonatas.

For the quintet, I wouldn’t want to part with a brand new version, just released and not yet reviewed in Fanfare, with clarinetist Sharon Kam and the Jerusalem Quartet on Harmonia Mundi. Still, the playing on this new…

I’ve wasted too much ink in these pages trashing the original 1854 version of Brahms’s B-Major Trio to go on about it again. I’m just relieved that the Trio Testore’s decision to include it didn’t come at the expense of excluding the revised final version, something that one or two other ensembles, inconceivably, have done, though I can’t tell you which ones they were because those recordings met with a horribly disfiguring, unnatural demise. The Testore might have been better advised, however, to include the Piano Trio in A Major attributed to Brahms instead; it may not be authentic, but it makes for a better listen than the first version of the B-Major Trio.

This entry will be brief because the Brahms piano trios are very well represented on disc, and they’ve been exhaustively covered in numerous past reviews. The Trio Testore is new to me and nearly so, it seems, to records, though a single-disc Audite album, containing a performance of Shostakovich’s E-Minor Trio, op. 67, plus what is assumed to be the same performance of Brahms’s Piano Trio No. 2 that’s included in this two-disc set, is available as a download only.

So, being unfamiliar with the group, naturally, I checked out its official website. How’s this for publicity hype? At least since the publication of the complete recording of piano trios by Brahms (SACD Audite), which caused a sensation around the world, the TRIO TESTORE, known for the intensity and originality of its interpretations, has become a household name in the music world. Why yes, the ensemble’s Brahms trios made international headlines, Twitter was all a-tweet, and just yesterday the Trio Testore was the topic of conversation around countless dinner tables.

Despite the Italian name it has taken for itself after the Testore family of 18th-century string instrument makers the Trio Testore is of German pedigree. Violinist Franziska Pietsch hails from Berlin, studied with the famed Dorothy DeLay in New York, won a number of competitions, and has soloed with several renowned orchestras and conductors. She plays a 1751 Carlo Antonio Testore violin. Cellist Hans-Christian Schweiker currently calls Cologne home, has partnered with members of the Amadeus Quartet, and has concertized widely throughout Europe. He plays a 1711 Carlo Giuseppe Testore cello. The instruments are set up and strung to modern standards. Pianist Hyun-Jung Kim-Schweiker, presumably Hans-Christian’s wife, made her debut at 13 with the Royal Philharmonic of Pusan, then traveled to Germany, where she studied at the Cologne University of Music, and has since made an international career for herself.

I really wanted to love these performances, especially since this is the first and only complete survey of the Brahms trios I know of on SACD. The Storioni Trio of Amsterdam recorded the first and second trios for PentaTone, but thus far hasn’t followed through with the third.

Unfortunately, the Trio Testore’s interpretive approach left me feeling queasy. Great swells on notes, no doubt meant to dramatize their emotional significance, are followed by sudden ebbs, lending a feeling of waves rising and falling. Complementing the dynamic crests and troughs are the rhythmic surging and slackening that expand and contract the shapes of the phrases. Tempos are consistently on the slow side, and violinist Pietsch is of a mind that the shortest distance between two notes is a portamento. All of this, I’m sure, is carried out with the best of intentions; Brahms, after all, can’t be trusted to express his true emotions without serious intervention, not to mention a good deal of slippery slithering and sliding around.

If you judge the Trio Testore strictly on the merits of its technical execution, no criticism can be lodged. But there’s more to performing music than playing the notes in tune. I wouldn’t go quite so far as to say about the Trio Testore something I once…

Hans-Eberhard Roß is doing a splendid job with these large-scale, broadly conceived and emotionally complex pieces. Roß plays the recently completed Goll Organ of St. Martin, Memmingen, which is a particularly felicitous choice for these Vierne works: its fullness and power are nicely complemented by delicacy and lyricism, providing the tremendous sonic and emotional range that these pieces require. And the polyphony of the music comes through clearly, thanks to the fine acoustics.

We have Trio Testore's stunning new account of the Brahms trios, music-making that is vibrant and expressive.

[...] when the Cleveland Orchestra under Szell played Mozart, it did so with the clarity of a chamber ensemble, so perfectly did every single element balance every other one and so well did Szell understand the precise workings of every instrument under his command.

Holliger’s performances draw on a lifetime study of Schumann’s music, thought, personality and fate. His approach imparts lightness and clarity to these scores through a balance of parts, delicately gradated dynamics and thoughtful tempos. The widespread image of this romantic composer as a weak orchestrator receives an interpretation that corrects that point of view.

audite s’emploie à rééditer les enregistrements réalisés par le Quatuor...