Intermezzi Archive
BRAHMS: Intermezzi, Rhapsodies – Francois Chaplin – Apertemusic
Brahms… in the hands of Francois Chaplin
BRAHMS: The Late Piano Works – Craig Sheppard, piano – Romeo Records
Craig Sheppard traverses the late Brahms piano music with resolve and reflection. BRAHMS: The Late Piano Works = 7 Fantasien, Op. 116; 3 Intermezzi, Op. 117; 6 Klavierstuecke, Op. 118; 4 Klavierstuecke, Op. 119 – Craig Sheppard, piano – Romeo Records 7327, 74:42 (3/18/18) [Distr. by Albany] ****: Brahms began the writing of his last sets of keyboard music around 1892, works he characterized as “old bachelor music” to suggest their introspective, sometimes bleak emotional states. Complex, dense, and contemplative, the pieces demand less of pure virtuosity than long, meditative musicianship and a capacity for nuanced coloration. Their brevity may pay homage to the composer’s mentor, Schumann, who extolled the short character piece as essential to the Romantic ethos. The Op. 116 set reveals a certain symmetry, with D Minor Capriccios serving as bookends, and interior lines shared by several of the Intermezzos, in the third and seventh pieces and close intimacy of those 4-6 in E Major, of which the No. 5 opens in minor but concludes in the major mode. Sheppard belies the remark about the relatively restrained virtuosity required, opening the D Minor Capriccio with Lisztian fervor, in the manner of an assertive ballad. The A Minor […]
BRAHMS: Pieces for Piano, Intermezzi – Arkadi Volodos, piano – Sony
BRAHMS: Pieces for Piano, Op. 76: Nos 1-4; 3 Intermezzi, Op. 117; Six Pieces, OP. 118 – Arkadi Volodos, piano – Sony 88875130192, 54:10 (5/19/17) ***: In an all-Brahms program of limited duration but passionate intensity, Volodos will win admirers and possibly alienate purists. This release of Brahms piano music (2015-2017) by Russian pianist Arkadi Volodos (b. 1972) will generate a degree of controversy that I am not likely to resolve. First, the brevity of the disc does not bode well, since I cannot fathom why producer Friedmann Engelbrecht did not insist Volodos complete the Op. 76 cycle, even perhaps adding the two Op. 79 Rhapsodies or the Op. 4 Scherzo. Doubtless, Volodos remains a colorist of distinction and sensitivity, and he has a natural sympathy for these abbreviated, intensely concentrated expressions of the late Brahms sensibility of stoic loneliness and passionate resignation. The question whether Brahms “purists” will respond favorably to Volodos’ over-ripe Steinway and his application of pedal will linger as a matter of taste. My own first impulse was to compare Volodos to Romanian Radu Lupu, whom I find to be more delicately chaste. The Glenn Gould approach entirely derives from Schoenberg, looking backward at Brahms […]
SCHUMANN: Phantasie in C Major, Op. 17; BRAHMS: Ten Intermezzi – Iskander Zakirov, p. – Blue Griffin
Kindred Romantic spirits Schumann and Brahms provide the lyric and passionate content of Zakirov’s recital. SCHUMANN: Phantasie in C Major, Op. 17; BRAHMS: Ten Intermezzi – Iskander Zakirov, p. – Blue Griffin BGR 387, 64:38 (1/5/16) [Distr. by Albany] ****: Iskander Zakirov was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan to a family of professional musicians. He started his musical studies at the age of five. At the age of six he entered the Uspensky Music Lyceum for Gifted Children in Tashkent, Soviet Union. Iskander Zakirov received his Doctor of Musical Arts from Michigan State University, where he studied with Deborah Moriarty. He also studied in the Tashkent State Conservatory and Duquesne University. His teachers include Lev Naumov, Lia Schwartz, and David Allen Wehr. This recital recording, engineered by Sergei Kvitko, results from sessions May-July 2015. Zakirov has a natural affinity for the Schumann Fantasie (1835-1838), conceived originally as part of a tribute for the Bonn monument to Beethoven. The piece, moreover, has a powerful autobiographical component for Schumann, who called the work a “deep lament” for his beloved Clara Wieck, from whom he had been separated in 1836. Schumann inscribed the score with a lyric from Schlegel that a secret note resounds […]
BRAHMS: Seven Fantasias; Three Intermezzi; Six Pieces; Four Pieces – Ariel Halevy, piano – Romeo
Potent, if unsubtle, performances of late Brahms, but resonant and filled with a conviction that wins us over.
BRAHMS: Late Piano Works = Three Intermezzi; Four Intermezzi; Capriccio in F-sharp Minor; Capriccio in B Minor; Five Pieces; Intermezzo in B Minor – Gena Raps, p. – Musical Friends NY
A highly personal and consistently compelling selected survey of late Brahms, music Clara Schumann claimed to be rife with “bittersweet discord.”
KALINNIKOV: “Symphonic Works” = Symphonies Nos. 1 in g minor & 2 in A Major; Intermezzi Nos. 1 in A Major & 2 in G Major; Serenade for Strings; Nymphs; Bylina Overture; The Cedar and the Palm; “Suite;” Incidental Music to “Tsar Boris” – USSR State Academic Sym. Orch./ Evgeny Svetlanov – Melodiya (3 CDs)
A most worthwhile collection of orchestral works by this rather obscure Russian composer.
“Harp Dances” – Floradela Sacchi, harp – works of SALZEDO, GRANADOS, LECUONA, ALBENIZ & RODRIGO – Decca “If Brahms Wrote for Harp” – 11 Intermezzi & a Rhapsodie – Tisha Murvihill – self
Two entrancing solo harp CDs of interest.
BRAHMS: Complete Piano Music Vol. 3 – Late Piano Works = Fantasien, Op. 116; Drei Intermezzi, Op. 117; Klavierstücke, Op. 118; Klavierstücke, Op. 119 – Hardy Rittner, piano – MD&G
It’s instructive and pleasurable to hear these works played on instruments Brahms would have known first-hand; the quieter, gentler pieces fare best.
HANS GÁL: The Complete String Quartets = Vol. 1: Quartet No. 1 in F Minor; Quartet No. 4 in B-flat Major; Improvisation, Variations, and Finale on a Mozart Theme; Quartet No. 2 in A Minor; Quartet No. 3 in b minor; 5 Intermezzi – Edinburgh Q. – Meridian
It’s good to see Hans Gál getting more of the attention he deserves these days.
BRAHMS: 7 Fantasien, Op. 116; 3 Intermezzi, Op. 117; Variations on a Theme of Haydn, Op. 56b – Christopher Atzinger, piano/Kathryn Ananda-Owens, piano – MSR Classics
Strong, assertive late Brahms mixed with his innate classicism and poetic reticence in a rewarding recital from Christopher Atzinger.
Stereotypes Audio
Cembal d’amour
Pure Pleasure / Speakers Corner
Cedille
