[4/12/2012] Is the radiant A major the "sleeper" among Brahms's piano quartets? (continued)

You have to wonder whether pianist Mei Rui, violinist Kobi Malkin, violist Adeliya Chamrina, and cellist Michael Katz noticed that Brahms marked the slow movement of the A major Piano Quartet "Poco adagio" rather than "Adagio." I'm not complaining, though (it seems to me a lovely performance), just wondering.


BEFORE WE CONTINUE WITH THE BRAHMS A MAJOR PIANO
QUARTET, I THOUGHT WE'D HARK BACK TO THE G MINOR

As you may guess from the consecutive opus numbers, 26 and 26, the first two Brahms piano quartets were essentially conceived in the same burst of inspiration -- another of those cases of a composer not just being able but seemingly needing to disgorge contrasting sets of musical arguments from his system. Which is why, before we proceed to the whole of the first movement of the A major quartet, I thought it would be useful to rehear the first movement of the G minor.

(I confess I also have an ulterior motive. I'm pretty grumbly about the recordings of the Brahms piano quartets, but I really like the set made by pianist Tamás Vásáry, violinist Thomas Brandis, violist Wolfram Christ, and cellist Ottomar Borwitzky, and it got aced out of the post on the G minor Quartet because, as I've mentioned, that weekend I thought I was going to be writing about the A major Quartet. For convenience I duly pulled the CD that contains it out of the DG "Complete Brahms" box safely ensconced at the office, so when I decided to do the G minor Quartet instead, I had the wrong quartet at home. Fast-forward to this week, when I realize that I never did get the CD with the A major Quartet back in the box. So now I have the performance of the G minor at hand, but not that of the A major! For the record, I've already refiled the disc containing the A major Quartet.)

BRAHMS: Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25:
i. Allegro

Tamás Vásáry, piano; Thomas Brandis, violin; Wolfram Christ, viola; Ottomar Borwitzky, cello. DG, recorded in Berlin, January 1982


NOW BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAM

BRAHMS: Piano Quartet No. 2 in A, Op. 26:
i. Allegro non troppo

Two of the performances of this movement we sampled Friday night seem to me too good not to follow up on. I suppose the one by Sviatoslav Richter and members of the Borodin Quartet is the more "conventional," though where Richter is concerned I have to put "conventional" in quotes. It's not easy to point out what he's doing that's so riveting, but that really does seem the appropriate word for it.

As for the performance by the Borodin Trio (with violist Rivka Golani), I noted when we listened to the Brahms G minor Piano Quartet that I love this team's breathtakingly broad, beautifully alive recording of the three Brahms quartets. This is especially remarkable in that I quite loathe the all-too-common practice of mindlessly bloating Brahms, bathing the music in unseemly musical sweat and often opening up musical seams all over the place -- seams carefully and deftly stitched by the composer.

(Note that both of these performances observe the exposition repeat.)


Sviatoslav Richter, piano; Borodin Quartet members (Mikhail Kopelman, violin; Dmitri Shebalin, viola; Valentin Berlinsky, cello). Philips, recorded live in Tours (France), c1986

Borodin Trio (Luba Edlina, piano; Rostislav Dubinsky, violin; Yuli Turovsky, cello); Rivka Golani, viola. Chandos, recorded in Colchester (England), July 14-16, 1988

OH YES, IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING HOW
THAT LICKETY-SPLIT PERFORMANCE CAME OUT

One thing the no-dawdling approach does is generally protect the performers from the menace of fake-Brahmsian bloat.


István Lantos, piano; Bartók Quartet members (Péter Komlós, violin; Géza Németh, viola; Károly Botvay, cello). Hungaroton, recorded early 1970s

AS FOR THE REST OF THE A MAJOR QUARTET . . .

We found all manner of intriguing musical and performance issues to touch on in G minor Piano Quartet. In the remaining movements of the A major, not so much. I didn't especially agonize over the choice of performances -- I think these are all fine (I think it's just a coincidence that they all feature established piano quartets) -- and the music seems to me on the whole to speak quite clearly for itself.

ii. Poco adagio

Maybe it would have been appropriate earlier when I isolated the three "principal themes" of the first movement that the "tunes" in this most lushly "tuneful" of creations parse more as "figures" or "patterns" than as what we would conventionally call "tunes." Certainly, though, the toughest test is a slow movement -- in this case not quite a full but a "poco" adagio.


Eastman Quartet: Frank Glazer, piano; Millard Taylor, violin; Francis Tursi, viola; Ronald Leonard, cello. Vox, recorded 1968

iii. Scherzo: Poco allegro

There are plenty of scherzos I would describe as "robust" -- that pretty much comes with the territory, doesn't it? -- but not many I would describe as "warm-hearted" and "generous of spirit."


Mozart Piano Quartet: Tamara Cislowska, piano; Natalie Chee, violin; Harmut Rohde, viola; Peter Hörr, cello. Arte Nova, recorded in Munich, April-May 2000

iv. Finale: Allegro

Here, you'll note, we finally have a movement that isn't temporized in the tempo-marking process. The first movement, after all, is "not too much" allegro; the second, as noted, is merely "a little" adagio; and the third is similarly "a little" allegro. Brahms deemed no such qualification necessary for this rousing allegro finale. (It may be worth mentioning that this recording was made in the auditorium of the Troy [NY] Savings Bank, a venue that has achieved fairly legendary status. It does sound pretty nice, doesn't it?)


Ames Piano Quartet: William David, piano; Mahlon Darlington, violin; Laurence Burkhalter, viola; George Work, cello. Dorian, recorded in Troy (NY), February 1995


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