BRAHMS; BRUCH; SCHUBERT Trios
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Max Bruch, Johannes Brahms, Franz Schubert
Genre:
Chamber
Label: Orchid Classics
Magazine Review Date: 10/2019
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 76
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: ORC100098
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Trio for Horn/Viola, Violin and Piano |
Johannes Brahms, Composer
Ivan Martin, Piano Johannes Brahms, Composer Natalia Lomeiko, Violin Yuri Zhislin, Viola |
(8) Pieces |
Max Bruch, Composer
Ivan Martin, Piano Max Bruch, Composer Natalia Lomeiko, Violin Yuri Zhislin, Viola |
Notturno |
Franz Schubert, Composer
Franz Schubert, Composer Ivan Martin, Piano Natalia Lomeiko, Violin Yuri Zhislin, Viola |
Composer or Director: Johannes Brahms
Genre:
Chamber
Label: Orchid Classics
Magazine Review Date: 10/2019
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 65
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: ORC100099
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Trio for Clarinet/Viola, Cello and Piano |
Johannes Brahms, Composer
Johannes Brahms, Composer Joseph Shiner, Clarinet Somi Kim, Piano |
Sonata for Clarinet and Piano No. 1 |
Johannes Brahms, Composer
Johannes Brahms, Composer Joseph Shiner, Clarinet Somi Kim, Piano |
Sonata for Clarinet and Piano No. 2 |
Johannes Brahms, Composer
Johannes Brahms, Composer Joseph Shiner, Clarinet Somi Kim, Piano |
Author: Richard Bratby
That’s the disc by Natalia Lomeiko, Yuri Zhislin and Ivan Martin. I’m not entirely convinced that Brahms’s Horn Trio gains much by being played on a viola (Brahms’s own dismissal of the modern valve horn as a ‘brass viola’ suggests that he wasn’t either), and in the first and third movements, in particular, you really need that sense of human breath, with its organic fade and dying fall. The same might be said of Bruch’s infinitely more lightweight Eight Pieces for clarinet, viola and piano, particularly in the ‘Romanian’ fifth piece, where Bruch leans so heavily on folk colour.
Yet there’s no disputing the sincerity of these readings or the fact that they give us something new: the steady, quiet deliberation with which they set about each work, the air of reticent melancholy that hangs over the Brahms and the aura of free-floating enchantment in Schubert’s Notturno. Lomeiko’s mild violin tone makes an attractive blend for Zhislin’s throaty viola; the balance is natural and intimate, and Martin’s pianism adds some lovely, unaffected touches of fantasy: harp colours in the Schubert and the jangle of a cimbalom in the Bruch.
The other disc, by contrast, is wholly ‘legitimate’: Brahms’s Clarinet Trio is paired with both of his late Clarinet Sonatas. And while the overall mood here, too, is reflective, there’s no shortage of drama, either. Clarinettist Joseph Shiner and pianist Somi Kim swing from stormy grandiloquence to twilit poetry in the outer movements of the F minor Sonata, before Shiner’s mellow, broad clarinet sound and Kim’s limpid piano-playing open out into the rolling vistas and whispered confidences of the E flat Second Sonata. If I’ve any reservation here it’s that Yoanna Prodanova’s sweet but lean cello timbre tends to vanish into the general tumult at the Trio’s craggier peaks. But these are attractive, musicianly performances; indeed, either of these discs would reward your time and care.
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