COMPOSERS: Brahms
LABELS: Harmonia Mundi Suite
WORKS: Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor; Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor
PERFORMER: Jean-Claude Pennetier (piano)Régis Pasquier (violin)Bruno Pasquier (viola)Roland Pidoux (cello)
CATALOGUE NO: HMT 7901062 ADD (1981)
Twenty-seven years separate these masterpieces by Brahms. The earlier, his G minor Piano Quartet (1861), recalls those by Schumann and Mozart, whose first quartet, K478, shares the same portentous key and demonic undercurrents. But this performance of Brahms’s G minor Quartet is unremarkable, and these French artists sound ragged in the eruptive Zingarese finale. Brahms’s last Violin Sonata, written in 1888, is played by Régis Pasquier and Jean-Claude Pennetier, but to equally unmemorable effect. Digitised sound is at best average. Michael Jameson
Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor; Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor
Twenty-seven years separate these masterpieces by Brahms. The earlier, his G minor Piano Quartet (1861), recalls those by Schumann and Mozart, whose first quartet, K478, shares the same portentous key and demonic undercurrents. But this performance of Brahms’s G minor Quartet is unremarkable, and these French artists sound ragged in the eruptive Zingarese finale. Brahms’s last Violin Sonata, written in 1888, is played by Régis Pasquier and Jean-Claude Pennetier, but to equally unmemorable effect. Digitised sound is at best average. Michael Jameson
Our rating
2
Published: January 20, 2012 at 2:33 pm