At first I was a little puzzled by this two-disc set from EBS, which includes the world premiere of the Brahms Concerto for Cello and Orchestra – I didn’t know Brahms wrote a cello concerto! I then looked at the timings for each disc, and they both clock in at less than 36 minutes – why would you place two works that could easily fit on one disc on two separate discs? Even more puzzled, I started reading the accompanying liner notes, and things began to make a little more sense. Apparently at the time Brahms was working on what was to be his cello concerto he reached out and re-established a long-broken friendship with violinist Joseph Joachim, and Brahms seemingly offered Joachim an olive branch by writing a violin part into the nearly finished cello concerto, even though Clara Schumann and others around him voiced their disapproval. The present EBS disc has a recreation of Brahms’ now famous “Double Concerto” as the cello concerto it was originally designed to be on disc one, and disc two presents the Double Concerto in its published form. The two discs appear to be designed for easy A-B comparisons bound to take place among music scholars everywhere.
Personally, and in spite of Clara’s objections, I prefer the published Double Concerto to Cord Garben’s re-imagining of the work as merely a cello concerto. Despite some deft rewriting of string and woodwind parts to help ameliorate the absence of the violin, the work to me just sounds a bit disjointed – the cello parts are seemingly laid bare, and really benefit from the inclusion and interplay of the violin. It is, however, really interesting to compare the recordings on the two discs; the sessions were recorded several months apart, and whereas disc one seems to possess a great warmth, disc two (recorded six months later the same year) seems much more detailed and analytical. My preference for the recording changes almost every time I listen, but each disc offers a compelling argument. Superb sound quality, very interesting, very imaginative, and very highly recommended!
– Tom Gibbs
