Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Sextet for strings No.1 in B flat major Op.18 (1860) [22:17]
Sextet for strings No.2 in G major Op.36 (1865) [36:46]
Quintet for strings No.1 in F major Op.88 (1882) [25:46]
Quintet for strings No.2 in G major Op.111 (1890) [28:20]
Pierre Fouchenneret (violin) Shuichi Okada (violin) Lise Berthaud (viola)
Adrien Boisseau (viola) François Salque (cello) Yan Levionnois (cello)
rec. live 9 January 2018, Théâtre de Coulomniers, France (quintets) 7 March 2018
Maladrerie St Lazare, Beauvais, France (sextets)
Reviewed as a digital download
B RECORDS LBM012
[59:03 + 54:06]
The works on this pair of discs represent the extreme ends of Brahms’
output, with the first sextet one of his earliest masterpieces and the
second quintet the work with which the composer announced his retirement
(prematurely as it turned out) 30 years later. In between, these two works,
Brahms developed considerably as a composer with the result that the
sextets, especially the first of them, are much more immediately accessible
works than the quintets. That said, the quintets are not as hard nuts to
crack as their lack of popularity might suggest.
This recording is volume 2 of a complete set of the Brahms chamber music. I
have previously reviewed volumes 1 – review pending – and 9 –
Recommended: review
– and been greatly impressed by both. The idea behind the project has been
to create a core troupe of musicians who were involved in all the live
performances from which these recordings derive.
As indicated already, the first of the sextets is Brahms at his most warm
and relaxed. Few works by him contain such a constant procession of great
melodies. This is Brahms the young Romantic, not the logician.
This is a fairly low-key performance which clearly sees this work as
chamber music and not a symphony accidentally scored for sextet. I am sure
many will want a riper approach but this view of the work sits well with
the overall vision of this Brahms chamber music project and with the other
works on this particular volume. Only in the celebrated variations that
form the slow movement did I feel the need for a tighter, more dramatic
grip on the narrative.
The opening of the second Sextet clearly owes a debt to the extraordinarily
intense opening movement of Schubert’s String Quartet D887, also in G
major. Fouchenneret, Berthaud and colleagues are completely in tune with
this homage. Their opening is whispered and full of pregnant meaning where,
for example, the much admired recording led by the Capuçons on Erato
9029588837 –
review
– is prosaic and the Nash Ensemble (on another much praised recording on
Onyx 4019 –
review)
are positively ungainly. Listen too to the way Fouchenneret et al allow
the music to flow naturally toward a climax, with the descending figures on
the viola really ringing out. By the time we get to the swinging song of
the second subject, I notice the way these performers have been springing
the rhythm right from the start. Compared to this, all the other rivals I
have heard sound rather flat footed.
I won’t go into detail about the rest of this performance of the second
sextet but limit myself to urging the reader to explore it. The effort will
be amply rewarded.
I listened to this set as a digital download in 24-bit wav format and
the sound is excellent in an unobtrusive way. There is plenty of ambient
acoustic and the microphone placing is nicely judged – neither too close
nor too remote.
The first of the quintets is a low-key work written in the shadow of the
mighty Second Piano Concerto. Where that piece is all grand gestures, the
quintet is intimate and confiding. In its own quiet way, it is structurally
extremely creative with a middle movement that deftly combines scherzo and
slow movement.
The opening movement is all about light and shade and the broad approach to
tempo taken by Fouchenneret and friends allows them plenty of scope to
capture the many moments where minor key clouds obscure the warm major key
sun. The effect is like sunlight through leaves.
The second movement fuses slow movement and scherzo and opens with a theme
that bears more than a passing resemblance to that of the equivalent
movement of the First Sextet. The melancholy in this later slow movement is
simultaneously more inward and filled with more pain. The gentleness with
which Fouchenneret and colleagues play the succeeding scherzo-like passage
points out continuity rather than contrast, an effect I greatly enjoyed.
With each repetition the sadness in the opening section is expanded upon.
Conversely the faster section gains in energy but also in dissonance, as if
the passion latent in the slower passages is seeking an outlet. Brahms’
handling of longer and shorter phrase lengths is masterly here. After the
breathless short phrases of the fast music, the ever longer phrases of the
slow music become more and more affecting. Brahms’ scoring for the strings
becomes richer, too, as the music proceeds before subsiding into a
perfectly poised and resigned cadence at the end. This movement shows us
Brahms the quiet revolutionary. The intensity of this final section is yet
another example of the extraordinary spirit of this project. Everyone seems
to be holding their breath.
The finale, by contrast, is approached in a leisurely spirit rather than
the contrapuntal tour de force it becomes in the hands of other performers.
I find this rather suits the inward approach taken to the rest of the
quintet. As with the rest of their account, the Nash Ensemble are faster
and leaner. The Hagen Quartet with Gérard Caussé (Presto/DG special CD
4534202, or download) are more dramatic but seem a little stiff to me.
The opening of the second quintet is an extraordinary feat of scoring for
strings. It parallels the way Brahms, in his late piano pieces, was
continually experimenting with new sonorities on the piano. The air seems
to quiver with alternating notes that gleam with G major sunlight. Anyone
who thinks of Brahms as heavy and stolid clearly doesn’t know this opening.
The trick to a good performance of this movement is to unify this airy
opening with the calmer, more wistful music that follows as part of the
second subject group. The unifying thread that the musicians on this
recording find is great gentleness. In some of Brahms’ early chamber music
what one is hearing very often are symphonies and concertos in chamber
music form. Not so here. This is genuine intimate chamber music and it
needs handling as such. Listen to the magical haunted stillness with which
the first movement development opens on this recording. This is music that
draws the listener in if they will allow it.
This is one of those works like the Third Symphony that hovers been major
and minor, where every joy is tinged with sadness, every grief has the
possibility of some consolation. Overload the subtle, understated longing
of the slow movement and it becomes a caricature and unbalances the work as
a whole. There is an inward quality that the performers on this recording
find effortlessly. This is never going to be music that enjoys widespread
popularity but in its muted way it tells us something important about
ordinary human life, not the heroic dramas normally associated with the
music of the Romantic era. Round about the third minute of the slow
movement, the music withdraws to a secluded place that seems to lie
equidistant between the late Beethoven quartets and the quartets of Bartók.
Fouchenneret and his fellow musicians follow Brahms into this place with
playing that is at once intensely focused and completely natural.
The third movement of this second quintet illustrates a general point about
rhythm in these subtle works. It is very easy to play this music in very
strict rhythm and miss the way Brahms is constantly shifting and playing
around with the beat. Loosen up, as the performers do on this disc, and
Brahms’ infinite rhythmical variety is revealed. A movement like this one,
a classic gentle Brahms intermezzo in lieu of a scherzo, should flow
gently, as it does here but with a delicate spring in its step.
The shadows and the light combine in the finale where severe old Brahms
springs a last surprise – a real let your hair down kick your shoes off
gypsy dance to round off a work which we only realise at that moment was in
danger of tumbling into excessive earnestness. This is one of those moments
where I was very aware that this was a live recording – that extra kick of
adrenaline really counts.
The quintets are works that have been more fortunate in the studio than the
concert hall and there are many easily recommendable versions but this
account of them is as good and, in many places, better than any.
Competition is much stiffer in the sextets but here their version of the
second sextet, specifically, is very special indeed.
David McDade
