BRAHMS: Complete Works for Violin and Piano = Violin Sonata No. 1 in G, Op. 78; Violin Sonata No. 2 in A, Op. 100; Violin Sonata No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 108; Sonata-Movement in C Minor – Nikolaj Znaider, violin/ Yefim Bronfman, piano – RCA Red Seal

by | Jul 24, 2007 | Classical CD Reviews | 0 comments

BRAHMS: Complete Works for Violin and Piano = Violin Sonata No. 1 in G, Op. 78; Violin Sonata No. 2 in A, Op. 100; Violin Sonata No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 108; Sonata-Movement in C Minor – Nikolaj Znaider, violin/ Yefim Bronfman, piano – RCA Red Seal 88697-06106-2,  71:22 ****:

Nicolaj Znaider and Yefim Bronfman recorded the complete Brahms violin chamber works 13-15 December 2005 at the campus of SUNY, Purchase, New York. Znaider plays a lovely instrument, the Stradivarius “ex-Liebig” 1704, lent him by The Royal Danish Theater. From the opening notes of the so-called “Rain” Sonata in G Major (1879), with its singular arrangement of dotted rhythms in each movement, we are privy to a special collaboration of Brahms acolytes. A warmly exquisite intimacy prevails over the whole work, an autumnal glow that I associate with my personal favorites in this music, Szigeti and Horszowski, pretty exalted company.  Nowhere is the music forced; the figures unfold naturally and graciously. The artists’ careful attention to the Brahms metrics, the studied application of rubato, and Znaider’s gorgeous tone and piercing double stops, makes for an authentic experience, Old School, one might even say “Viennese.” The Allegro amabile of the A Major alternates between a sweetly martial pulse and a variant in ¾ of the composer’s own song Wie Melodien zieht es mir, Op. 105, No. 1.  The delicate tracery of Bronfman’s piano part, a softly resonant Steinway, provides a soft undergarment for Znaider’s wooing in the treble. Something Schumannesque resides in the Andante tranquillo, intimate and playful at once. The last movement, Allegretto grazioso, opens pp in the violin, then the sound expands on the violin’s G string, a lovely song with gossamer wings.

Even the passionate 1888 D Minor Sonata implodes rather than explodes, the communication focused between the two musicians and not playing to the rafters. We seem to have become eavesdroppers at an intimate, occasionally anguished confession, the piano’s dominant pedal held while the violin waxes nostalgic through bariolage figurations. The Adagio has emotional girth but does not impose on us. All the energies draw inward, as though we were in the presence of the same composer’s Intermezzi, Op. 117. A frolicsome courtship in the duple meter Scherzino. Then, the full tide of feeling unleashes in the syncopated rondo, Presto agitato, a darker emotion whose tender urgency is beautifully graduated by our collaborators. 

The equally passionate C Minor sonata-movement (1853) for the F-A-E Sonata is the most extroverted moment of sturm und drang on the disc. It has a touch of the emotionality we find in the Op. 5 F Minor Sonata. The piano’s dark, 3-note ostinato expands obsessively, then sublimates itself under the tender middle section song by the violin solo. Its reassertion reminds me of the winds that embrace Francesca and Paolo after her confession in Inferno of amorous sin.

— Gary Lemco
 

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