Todd A
pfm Member
When I first bought Stephen Hough’s late Brahms, I thought it needed an A/B. I originally planned to compare it to Anna Gourari’s take, but then when I revisited her recording, it left a bigger impression than I thought it would, so I decided to morph the A/B into a survey. The focus is recordings of the complete set of works from Op 116 through Op 119, but I will throw in some incomplete sets because, well, because.
My memory of Ms Gourari’s disc was that in the faster, more energetic recordings she pushes things hard and becomes almost overbearing. That’s not to say her playing sounds hard or that she bangs away, but rather there’s a relentlessness to some of her playing. Call that her Brahmsian Florestan, for her other musical personality is Brahmsian Eusebius as she plays with great nuance and tenderness in many of the slower pieces. One needn’t wait more that the first two pieces, with a near jack-hammer opening Capriccio blasting the listeners ears. Blasting in a pleasant way. It is Presto energico, after all. Then comes the first Intermezzo, and it’s an Andante, and her playing changes completely, with superb playing in the pianissimo to mezzo-piano range, and her playing slows – not too much – and sounds right. She goes one better a couple pieces later in the Adagio, which begins to approach what Volodos does in late Brahms, something she continues in the Andante con grazia ed intimissimo sentiment. When she closes out Op 116, the Allegro agitato sounds agitated, indeed, and has whiffs of Kreisleriana within, though informed by one too many (or one too few) Red Bulls. Gourari coaxes great and gentle beauty out of the Andante moderato of Op 117, and the clarity of her fingerwork in the second piece while playing softly is quite fine, and then in the last of the works, the way she dispatches the highest register notes at varying dynamic levels sounds nifty. The first Intermezzo in Op 118 and the Ballade display more drive and bite, but everything else sounds sublimely beautiful, the Romanze especially. In Op 119, she sort of delivers late Brahms with a late-LvB transcendence until the concluding Rhapsodie, which comes off as a triumphant march. Overall, this set has improved with age. This is helped by top notch Berlin Classics sound.
My memory of Ms Gourari’s disc was that in the faster, more energetic recordings she pushes things hard and becomes almost overbearing. That’s not to say her playing sounds hard or that she bangs away, but rather there’s a relentlessness to some of her playing. Call that her Brahmsian Florestan, for her other musical personality is Brahmsian Eusebius as she plays with great nuance and tenderness in many of the slower pieces. One needn’t wait more that the first two pieces, with a near jack-hammer opening Capriccio blasting the listeners ears. Blasting in a pleasant way. It is Presto energico, after all. Then comes the first Intermezzo, and it’s an Andante, and her playing changes completely, with superb playing in the pianissimo to mezzo-piano range, and her playing slows – not too much – and sounds right. She goes one better a couple pieces later in the Adagio, which begins to approach what Volodos does in late Brahms, something she continues in the Andante con grazia ed intimissimo sentiment. When she closes out Op 116, the Allegro agitato sounds agitated, indeed, and has whiffs of Kreisleriana within, though informed by one too many (or one too few) Red Bulls. Gourari coaxes great and gentle beauty out of the Andante moderato of Op 117, and the clarity of her fingerwork in the second piece while playing softly is quite fine, and then in the last of the works, the way she dispatches the highest register notes at varying dynamic levels sounds nifty. The first Intermezzo in Op 118 and the Ballade display more drive and bite, but everything else sounds sublimely beautiful, the Romanze especially. In Op 119, she sort of delivers late Brahms with a late-LvB transcendence until the concluding Rhapsodie, which comes off as a triumphant march. Overall, this set has improved with age. This is helped by top notch Berlin Classics sound.