I'm sure every record lover knows that feeling when you play a record for the first time and somehow know after a few bars that everything is going to be just right. Such was the case for me with this new issue. In previous reviews of the two Brahms sextets I have suggested that there was room for an outstanding new version, and I think that version has now arrived.
This is the Raphael Ensemble's first recording. They are a London-based group of six young but very experienced musicians who joined together in 1982 to explore repertoire for string chamber music involving more than four players. What struck me at once was the strength of character in their playing. The opening movement of the First Sextet provides a case in point. When played by the Berlin Octet members on Philips the result is a well-played, musicianly performance which gives a good deal of pleasure. But how much greater an impact the music makes in the new Hyperion version, where the playing has more commitment contrast and depth, an extra boldness in the use of phrase, and a feeling of joy in response to the experience of exploring and mastering a great work.
Those qualities are present throughout the Raphael Ensemble's performances of both sextets. I particularly relished the sheer exuberance of the First Sextet's Scherzo, which precedes a gently expressed, unaffected and yet most heart-warming account of the rondo-finale. At the opening of the Second Sextet the players simply let the music float gradually into being, as if Brahms is improvising and exploring, and then as the movement gathers momentum the Raphael Ensemble respond with radiantly positive, almost rapturous playing. And what a delicious, infectious rocking rhythm there is at the outset of the finale, and how movingly the players shape that wonderfully wise theme that only Brahms could have conceived.
These are glorious performances which quite eclipse the worthy Berlin Octet recordings and the musical, but somewhat cautious accounts of the sextets by the Kocian Quartet and friends on Denon. The Hyperion disc has a recording of a very high standard technically, but some listeners may find it a little too searching and uncomfortable. But that is the only drawback to an outstanding new issue.'