Glorious Brahms
Brahms’ Piano Quintet is one of my favorite pieces of classical chamber music. This recording is really excellent; Stephen Hough along with the Takacs String Quartet are at the top of their art. They give Brahms’ quintet a wonderful reading, and it is filled with beautiful sound, a wonderful sense of rhythm, along with Brahms’ many sonorous harmonies. You will hear many beautiful “inner voices” of this work—really gorgeous!
Stephen Hough and the Takacs quartet are really up to the many challenges of the work expressing Brahms’ aggressiveness as well as his tenderness.
The CD tracks are:
String Quartet Op. 51:
• Movement 1: Allegro non troppo
• Movement 2: Andante, un poco adagio
• Movement 3: Scherzo. Allegro
• Movement 4: Poco sostenuto-Allegro non troppo- Presto non troppo String
Quartet in A minor, Op. 51, No. 2
Piano Quintet, Op. 34:
• Movement 1: Allegro non troppo
• Movement 2: Adnante moderato
• Movement 3: Quasi menuetto, modrato- Alegro vivace
• Movement 4: Allegro non assai
Here’s a great video of a different group of younger players who gave the Brahms Quintet a great interpretation:
Here is Stephen Hough Playing Brahms’ First Piano Concerto
And finally here is Stephen Hough playing three short Rameau pieces at the opening gala of the 2005 Mostly Mozart Festival. Wonderful, sensitive playing!
Tags: Brahms, Piano Quintet, Takacs, Stephen Hough, pianist