Search - Johannes Brahms, Robert Schumann, Bruno Seidler-Winkler :: Brahms: Sonatas in G major Op. 78 & A major Op. 100; Hungarian Dances Nos. 2, 5 & 20

PEARL OF GREAT PRICE

DAVID BRYSON | Glossop Derbyshire England | 01/27/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"That's really `Pearl of great value'. I wouldn't know what price this Pearl disc might fetch if it were some other kind of antique and not a musical recording. The three duo sonatas here were recorded in London during the 30's, the three Hungarian dances in Berlin in 1921 and 1922. Recordings from the early 20's are products of the old acoustic technology, and there is no way of turning them into modern sound or anything resembling that. What these three Hungarian dances do is preserve for us the incomparable artistry of Adolf Busch, whose teachers had been associates of Brahms himself, and the arrangements for violin and piano are the work of none other than Joachim, dedicatee of Brahms's violin concerto. The piano is audible but not much more, but Busch comes across not badly at all, all things considered and making allowance for a good deal of processing noise. The shellac recordings from the 30's still have a certain amount of surface swish to them, but after a lifetime of collecting LP's that is something that I for one can disregard automatically without troubling to manipulate the controls on my cd-player. The producer thinks very well of the quality of the original recording, and he dismisses in one pithy phrase the requirements of modern perfectionists. What he can't do anything about is the placing of the violin near the microphone and the piano in the background. I'm not personally disposed to wring my hands over this either. From Mozart to Brahms duo sonatas were written for `piano and violin' not for `violin and piano', but the mindset of treating the piano as `accompaniment' died hard. In fact Serkin can be heard very well, the sense of a partnership of equals is not lost by any means, and the 70-year-old violin sound should bother no listener with ears to hear.



When Busch wanted an `accompanist', as in the Hungarian dances here, he hired some lesser being and did not affront Serkin with any such request. I had never heard of Bruno Seidler-Winkler before, and I can't say I've heard him to any great extent even now, but I'm grateful for what I've got. The real point of this disc is surely to hear the great duo of Busch and Serkin at the height of their powers. The Schumann sonata is a special prize just by itself. Serkin performed Schumann's three works with orchestra and he performed the piano quintet, and his accounts of these are so magnificent that it makes his avoidance of the solo pieces rather a mystery. However the duo did perform the violin sonatas, and the A minor piece here is Schumann in his dreamy `Eusebius' persona for the most part, perhaps chosen to be in keeping with the first two Brahms sonatas rather than his more dramatic third. It is a beautiful work, if not quite the greatest Schumann, and with a notable predilection for the lowest string of the violin in the first movement. The Brahms performances are heavenly to my ears. Brahms's tempo indications seem to me much less straightforward and intelligible than Beethoven's or Mendelssohn's. How are we to understand `vivace ma non troppo' in the first movement of the first sonata? A fast speed would obviously be out of character, and although the music becomes lively here and there its predominant tone is relaxed and lyrical. The speed here is probably a little faster than we are used to nowadays, particularly when the music becomes more assertive, but this is still much as we usually hear it done, only better. To hear a sound among violin sounds, just listen to Busch's treatment of the pizzicato chords at the point where the piano takes the main melody. The first movement of the A major is definitely faster than I have been accustomed to, and all the better for that, with a true radiance to the effect as Serkin leads off.



These are instances picked more or less at random. There is real greatness in this playing, and while it shows through in detail after detail, what is most of all sublime is these players' overall grasp of the works and the sense that they represent a specially authentic tradition. To a great extent they have set a standard for performance that has lasted, and long may it do so. The liner-essay is a model of good taste and sensibility, sparing us platitudes about the music and focusing instead on the interpretative style and tradition, and on the players themselves. As is the way of centenaries, the current phase of Serkin reissues was no doubt prompted by his centenary in 2003. Sony have been leading the field, but the more the better so far as I'm concerned, and I shall be looking for the Pearl label a great deal more from now on."