Hot on the heels of the superb Erato recording with the Capucon brothers et al comes this energetic account of Brahms's two sextets by the expanded Mandelring Quartet. With their wide-eyed exuberance, the Mandelring remind us that these are youthful masterworks. Only in the opening movement of the First Sextet do they push too hard; there's not much ma non troppo in this Allegro. Then, at bar 43 (1 '03 "), Brahms writes tranquillo, more as an expressive instruction than a tempo-change. The Mandelring don't pay heed to this marking; but a few pages later, at bar 85 (2 '09"), with a similarly notated animato, they lurch into an even higher gear.

That said, there's a fervour to these performances that's quite special – and the remaining tempo choices, while nearly always on the brisk side, are ultimately convincing. Technically, the playing is exceptional in its tonal beauty and purity of intonation. Listen to cellist Bernhard Schmidt's glorious, singing sound at l' 57" in the finale of the First Sextet, and then to the glistening tone and spot-on tuning of violinist Sebastian Schmidt in the exposed, high-lying passage at 5'58". This refinement coupled with clean articulation helps clarify thick textures, and the often intricate instrumental interplay is managed seamlessly. The themes in the finale of the Second Sextet are juggled so deftly and with such lyrical abandon as to induce a joyous adrenaline rush. This intensity has as much to do with expressive warmth and attention to detail as it does with panache and polish – note, for example, those little, heart-tugging mordents that ornament the main melody in the Scherzo of Op 36.

I wouldn't want to be without the Erato disc, as the Capucon-led interpretations get straight to the heart of these gemütlich scores. But this exquisitely engineered Audite recording offers a fresh perspective that, in terms of musicianship and execution, comes very close to perfection.

First to clarify: this is not the same K595 from Robert Casadesus and Carl Schuricht that appears on Orfeo (C536 001B), though the two are very alike, while the live VPO Brahms Second post-dates that recently reissued in 'Carl Schuricht: the Complete Decca Recordings' (7/17) by roughly nine years. This Mozart features the Swiss Festival Orchestra (the Orfeo, from Salzburg, is with the VPO) and finds Casadesus on top form, possibly out-classing his various other recordings – live and studio – of the same work. Schuricht directs fluid, well-paced accompaniment, stylishly shaped and beautifully played. Right from his first entry, Casadesus displays his signature clarity of finger work, building crescendos with impeccable judgement, switching between a sprightly staccato and warming legato. The Larghetto conjures up a mood of utter stillness: this truly is artistry of the highest order.

The Brahms is mellower than its predecessor, less volatile too. But there are moments that are unforgettable: the gently nudged strings beneath the solo horn at 12'23" into the first movement; the glowing blend of lower strings and brass for the second movement's second subject; and, most magical, the return of the outer section of the Allegretto grazioso (from 3' 15 "), so much more gentle than on the older version. Towards the close of the finale, from 7' 55 ", Schuricht gives precedence to the lower strings' motif, which greatly intensifies the build-up to the coda. The Decca version is similar but nowhere near as effective. Both works are captured in fine mono sound. And if you want to investigate a compelling follow-up, try Casadesus and Schuricht with the Orchestre National de la RTF in Brahms's Second Concerto (on INA) – not perfect by any means, but consistently gripping.

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Das ‘Swiss Piano Trio’ ist nun beim vierten Teil seiner Gesamteinspielung der Beethoven-Trios angekommen. Dass sie sich auf fünf Scheiben erstreckt und nicht wie sonst auf drei, liegt daran, dass diese Musiker das übliche Gehege der elf gezählten Trios abgrasen, aber auch noch außerhalb des Zauns fündig werden. In dieser Aufnahme haben sie ihren Pfad ein wenig verlassen und präsentieren nur frühere Werke, die (ursprünglich) bis 1800 entstanden.

Von den gezählten Werken wird das ‘Gassenhauer Trio’ präsentiert, das im abschließenden Variationssatz eine Melodie von Joseph Weigl verarbeitet. Spätestens in der Coda geht die Gestaltung so weit, dass der Weigl durch Beethoven ersetzt wurde.

Das ebenfalls vorgestellte Allegretto in Es-Dur wurde noch in Bonn komponiert und zeigt damit den jungen und noch nicht vollendeten, wenn auch deutlich erkennbaren Komponisten.

Das Trio op. 38 ist eine Rarität im Katalog ebenso wie im Konzert, wie auch sein Original. Es handelt sich nämlich um die 1807 vom Komponisten selbst geschaffene Bearbeitung seines Septetts für Bläser und Streicher. Diese Triofassung ist wohl auch aus wirtschaftlichen Gründen entstanden, da die Besetzung für Klaviertrio sehr beliebt war und so die Bearbeitung weitere Absatzchancen bot. Interessant ist, dass das Werk neu beleuchtet wird, da aus der Zweiteilung Bläser zu Streichern einerseits eine Fokussierung auf das Klavier wird, dem ein Großteil der Aufgaben übertragen wird, als auch eine Dreiteilung auf die Instrumente des Trios, so dass durchaus neue Ansichten entstehen.

Die drei Musiker bleiben sich insoweit treu, als sie die Kompositionen formvollendet klassisch spielen. Damit bietet das Trio ein spannendes, lustvolles Musizieren an, das die offenen und auch die geheimen Ecken der Kompositionen trefflich ausleuchtet, ohne mit Artistik oder Oberflächlichkeit zu betrügen. Gerade auch beim großformatigen Septett-Trio kommt noch ihre Fähigkeit hinzu, musikalische Linien rhetorisch stilvoll und aussagekräftig über längere Strecken spannungsreich zu gestalten.
Besides his numbered trios, Beethoven has reworked his Septet for piano trio. It is among the works played on this remarkable CD. The Swiss Piano Trio is trustful to its very classic way of performing. The playing is superbly polished, rhetoric and bright.

De la belle musique par un grand monsieur du piano, à écouter et réécouter !

Das deutsche Trio Lirico und Pianist Detlev Eisinger dröseln die dennoch nicht ganz unkomplizierten Stimmengeflechte quasi spielerisch auf, musikantisch im besten Sinne des Wortes.

[Marc Coppey] s’engage dans l’œuvre avec une intensité, une furia, quelque chose de précipité et de quasiment à court de souffle qui dès les premières pages saisit.

Le ton si enjoué, la légèreté du geste de Carl Schuricht dans l’ultime Concerto de Mozart rencontre si pleinement le piano simplissime de Robert Casadesus, un tel soleil mélancolique s’infuse entre eux, les faisant respirer dans les mêmes vibrations de couleurs et de sons !

There’s an intensity and seriousness to the playing of German violinist Franziska Pietsch that makes her performances compelling. I was taken with the fierceness of her approach to Prokofiev’s First Violin Sonata (enthusiastically reviewed in Fanfare 40:2), yet Pietsch can also make the violin “speak” in a wide range of expression, sometimes subtly shaded from note to note. In that regard she reminds me of Christian Tetzlaff, a musician I deeply admire, and now this new release of works by Szymanowski and Franck inclines me to believe in her even more.
For readers unfamiliar with Pietsch’s career, here’s a sketch from my earlier review. “She was born in East Germany, coddled and supported as a child star by the government, only to be oppressed for two years after her father escaped to the West in 1984. After her own emigration in 1986 and a peripatetic education that included studies with Dorothy DeLay at Juilliard, Pietsch has had a varied career as a concertmaster, touring soloist, and chamber music player. I first noticed her as a member of the accomplished Testore Trio, a group she helped found in Germany in 2000 and only recently left in 2015.”

To start with the familiar work on the program first, the Franck Violin Sonata, presented as a wedding present to Ysaÿe in 1886, was hugely influential, in that it cemented the genre as a prestigious offering in Parisian musical salons throughout the late Romantic era. The sonata’s cyclic form is typical of Franck, and he not only veered away from the tradition of using solo violin works merely as entertaining display pieces, but he also provided an equal partnership for the pianist. (Julia Fischer, who is proficient in both instruments, once commented that having played both parts in recital, she found the piano’s contribution more interesting.)

There are plenty of elegant and suave recordings of this sonata, but Pietsch’s isn’t one of them. She subdues her intensity somewhat in the first movement, but it is unleashed in the second-movement Allegro, only to sink to a suspenseful quiet as the music unfolds. In 2015 there was a superb reading of the Franck Sonata by a stellar pair, Renaud Capuçon and Khatia Buniatishvili (Warner, reviewed in 38:4), and what shone in their performance—spontaneity, passion, and a wide variety of expression—is rivaled here. There are marked differences, though, such as the slower, almost meditative approach that Capuçon and Buniatishvili take in the first movement, her world-class technique in fast passages, and his rounded, lustrous tone. By comparison Pietsch and her pianist Detlev Eisinger, who also appeared on her two previous recital discs, are more urgent, raw, and at times powerful. At the same time, they display real inwardness in the third movement “Recitativo” and keep the sweet, salon-ready finale from sounding cloying. I’d place this performance among the best if you value individuality of interpretation.

Karol Szymanowski was a stylistic chameleon, and even when he tethered a piece to underpinnings of Debussy, Ravel, or Scriabin he quickly took off on his own flights of fancy. His major and probably most original work for violin and piano is Mythes, a three-part suite from 1915 that interprets ancient Greek mythology in highly coloristic, harmonically free forms. The Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun hovers in the background as the music evokes the metamorphosis of Aratheusa into a fountain, Narcissus becoming enamored of his reflection in a pool, and a chase of woodland nymphs by the god Pan. But Debussy is more programmatic than anything here. As with Schumann, another highly literary composer, Szymanowski’s references are oblique.
Of the few top readings I’ve heard, my standard has been a Melodiya recording of Sviatoslav Richter and Oleg Kagan made in concert from Warsaw in 1982 (released in good broadcast stereo by DOREMI). One can never argue against the excitement and authority of Richter, and the gifted young Kagan was a favorite partner. Yet Pietsch is dazzling in her imaginative ability to make Szymanowski’s rhapsodic style come together as musical sense the ear can follow. She’s bold and fearless even though this music is generally Impressionistic. The chain of trills in the third piece, “Dyads and Pan,” mixed with slides and runs, conveys the mood of hysteria and wild abandon in this erotic chase. Suddenly the mood gives way to faint, whistling harmonics that Pietsch expresses with evocative mystery. In its beauty and drama, this reading goes a long way to revealing Mythes as the masterwork it is. The Romance in D that follows is like a vocalise for violin in the Romantic vein of endless yearning melody. It moves from gentle lyricism to passages of agitated passion, both of which Pietsch manages beautifully.

Franck and Szymanowski can be viewed as opposites in that one affirms every facet of Romanticism while the other is freeing himself from the same Romanticism through experimental harmonies, emotional ambiguousness, and a restless inability to find his place anywhere for long. But the works that Pietsch plays with such involvement and individuality are rhapsodically yearning at the core, not to mention ravishing to the ear. Since I listened to a streaming audio, I can’t comment on the program notes or the packaging, but the recorded sound is clear and natural. Strongly recommended.

During the 17th and 18th centuries the imperial court in Vienna was one of the...