COMPOSERS: Brahms
LABELS: Hyperion
ALBUM TITLE: Brahms
WORKS: Piano Quartets Nos 1-3; Three Intermezzi, Op. 117
PERFORMER: Marc-André Hamelin (piano); Leopold String Trio
CATALOGUE NO: CDA 67471-2
Marc-André Hamelin could not
have chosen more challenging
repertory for his debut recording
as a chamber musician for the
Hyperion label than the three
Brahms Piano Quartets. Apart
from the fearsome technical
demands of the piano part, these
works encompass a vast intellectual
and expressive range; the frequent
recourse to full-blooded textures is
almost symphonic in conception.
Not surprisingly Hamelin
makes light work of the tricky
piano writing. The Scherzo
of the C minor Piano Quartet
(No. 3) is dispatched with dazzling
brilliance yet never sacrifices the
music’s underlying sense of stress
and anxiety. Even more stunning
is Hamelin’s fingerwork in the
Rondo alla Zingarese of No. 1 in G
minor, the playing outstripping all
rivals in terms of its blistering pace
and unbridled aggression.
At the opposite end of the
emotional spectrum, he draws some
beautifully limpid sounds from the
fragile Intermezzo in the G minor
and the darkly brooding mystery of
the slow movement of the A major,
maintaining this vein of
introspection in a deeply
searching account of the
Op. 117 piano pieces.
The Leopold
String Trio
responds admirably
to Hamelin’s
outstanding
contribution,
providing a
beautifully
homogenised sound
that nonetheless sustains
sufficient variety of tone and
articulation to avoid any hint of
stodginess, except perhaps in the long
first movement of the G minor where
at times I missed a sense of forward
momentum. Although the piano
tone lacks a little warmth in some
climaxes, the recording has a good
presence and welcome clarity.
All in all then, this is a
highly recommendable modern
version, though in the last resort
it doesn’t quite have the magical
qualities of the Rolls-Royce team of
Stern, Laredo, Ma and Ax on Sony’s
release, or the intensity of the Beaux
Arts Trio with Walter Trampler from
the early 1970s, the latter restored
in spectacular SACD sound.