Cheap Brahms: Four Hand Piano Music, Vol. 9 (Music) (Johannes Brahms, Christian Kohn, Silke-Thora Matthies) Price
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| ARTIST: | Johannes Brahms, Christian Kohn, Silke-Thora Matthies |
| CATEGORY: | Music |
| MANUFACTURER: | Naxos |
| TYPE: | Chamber Music & Recitals, Classical |
| MEDIA: | Audio CD |
| TRACKS: | Maestoso, Adagio, Rondo: Allegro Non Troppo, Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80 |
| UPC: | 636943411629 |
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Customer Reviews of Brahms: Four Hand Piano Music, Vol. 9
This Triumphant Series Continues with a Real Rarity I've obtained and vastly enjoyed every single one of this Naxos series of music by Brahms for four-hand piano duet featuring the team of Silka-Thora Matthies and Christian Kohn. Months ago I'd learned of the plans for this particular issue featuring a four-hand version of the First Piano Concerto, the ninth in the series, and have been eagerly awaiting its arrival. It has finally been issued and I have to say that it is a complete triumph.
I had not known, until this issue was announced, that there was ever a four-hand version of the First Piano Concerto. I had known (and played at the keyboard) the two-piano version, which is simply the solo concerto part with a single-piano reduction of the orchestral score. But this version was published in 1874, even before the two-piano version, and indeed one learns from the excellent booklet notes by Keith Anderson that that original version of this concerto was as a two-piano sonata, another fact I had not known.
Still I had some concerns about how this monumental score, with its complex orchestral polyphony and massive piano part, would be reduced for piano four-hands. I needn't have worried. It's all here, and sounds as natural as daylight. There are only a few places where there are some noticeable octave displacements and a few others where one misses the instrumental qualities one can only get from the orchestral accompaniment. And I detected several spots in the first movement where a bit of the accompanimental texture is lightened, with one contrapuntal strand left out. Otherwise, in my opinion, this version can stand as a valid presentation of Brahms's thinking. And of course this concerto is the most symphonic of all piano concerti written up to its time of composition.
As to the playing, it is nonpareil. This piano duet team is simply spectacular in their musicality, their technical abilities. One must also note that the sound of the piano being recorded is rich and full as well, but with clarity (so necessary for bringing out polyphonic voices) and a slight and needed edge in the upper register. So much of Brahms's writing emphasizes close harmonies in the bass and that can get muddy in piano recordings, but that is not the case here. The bass is full and rounded and utterly clear. Just listen to those thunderous trills in the opening measures! Huzzah to the recording engineers as well.
The filler piece, a four-hand reduction of the 'Academic Festival Overture,' is slightly less successful if only because one misses the contributions made by orchestral color. Still, it is jolly, forward-moving and very nicely played.
I don't know what else, if anything, is forthcoming in this wonderful series, but you can bet I'll be getting it when it is issued. Whosever idea it was to issue this series gets my heartfelt thanks (and that of other Brahms-lovers of my acquaintance).
Heartily recommended.
TT=63:20
Scott Morrison